Nippon Shokubai has established a new Green Innovation department within the Innovation & Business Development division. This, the company said, will integrate sustainable projects with research planning and development organisations related to energy and resource use. Its key responsibilities are to develop:

* Manufacturing methods from bio-based raw materials of the firm’s core products of acrylic acid and ethylene oxide

* CO₂ capture and conversion technology

* New technologies for ammonia manufacturing and utilisation

DuPont and the companies that used to be part of it, Chemours and Corteva, have reached a settlement with the Delaware Department of Justice. Under this, they are held responsible for decades of damage done to Delaware’s environment by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs).

The agreement has avoided a potential lawsuit for historic contamination by PFASs in Delaware, which remains DuPont’s headquarters. This had impacted waterways and groundwater located in each of the state’s three counties.

UK distributors hit by driver shortage The Chemical Business Association (CBA), which represents chemical distributors and logistics services providers in the UK, has again highlighted the chronic shortage of HGV drivers since Brexit. This, they said in a letter to the Secretaries of State for Transport and Business “has reached a critical point for the UK chemical supply chain”.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) has approved the world’s first toxicology testing strategy without animal testing. This can now be used to test for skin sensitisation and any products that pass can be placed on the market.

The strategy, which consists of three ‘alternative’ methods, was jointly developed and validated over ten years by BASF and Givaudan, in partnership with various companies and scientific institutions, notably IIVS. It is claimed to have better predictivity for human allergy risks than traditional animal testing.

According to an analysis by CEFIC of data reported through the EU’s Safety Gate, 2020 saw a steep increase in imports of hand sanitisers that were not compliant with the EU chemicals safety rules. These were either not marked as flammable or containing methanol, as required by EU Classification & Labelling rules, or had insufficient ethanol to kill viruses, as required by the Biocides Regulation, CEFIC noted.

Miles Robinson, partner, and Daniel Cook, senior associate, at international law firm Mayer Brown, discuss the key considerations in the chemicals industry when drafting contracts post-Brexit

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has issued a set of policy recommendations, which, it says could “enable dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” and help the administration to achieve its climate goals. Specifically, it called on Congress to enact legislation to

1. Increase government investment and scientific resources to develop and deploy low emission technologies in the manufacturing sector

2. Adopt transparent, predictable, technology- and revenue-neutral, market-based, economy-wide carbon price signals; and