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The Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs announced on Monday that ChemFORWARD is the 2024 winner of the Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership. Through collaborations with consumer product manufacturers, retailers, chemical suppliers, NGOs, and trade groups, ChemFORWARD compiles and maintains a repository of verified chemical hazard assessments (CHAs) to help companies make informed and environmentally sound decisions about the chemicals used in their supply chains.
For 25 years, the prestigious Roy Family Award has been presented biannually to celebrate an outstanding cross-sector partnership that enhances environmental quality through novel and creative approaches. This year’s winning project has developed a digital repository of chemicals, identifying those that threaten human health and the environment, as well as potential safer, functional substitutions. This tool provides an affordable, efficient resource for companies looking to proactively use safer chemicals and complements regulatory initiatives to reduce chemical pollution.
Thousands of toxic chemicals within industrial supply chains travel through water, air, or food supplies, negatively impacting human health and the environment. Over the past two decades, deaths caused by pollution, including toxic chemical pollution, have increased by an estimated 66 percent.
Companies seeking to eliminate the use of hazardous chemicals in their supply chains are stymied by the limited availability of chemical hazard data. CHAs are costly to conduct, and they are often individually commissioned by companies, using different methodologies, and then siloed away from public knowledge, creating redundancy and slowing the transfer of information on hazardous chemicals and ultimately the manufacture of products using safer chemicals. Companies may refrain from sharing chemical hazard data due to concerns about competition or reputational risks.
ChemFORWARD addresses these problems by developing CHAs that are shared with the entire collaborative, resulting in benefits beyond single clients. After consulting with partners to establish priorities, ChemFORWARD commissions assessments from independent toxicology firms, using globally accepted methodologies for chemical classification. All CHAs in ChemFORWARD are also peer-reviewed by an independent toxicologist. To manage reputational or competitiveness concerns, private sector partners can also contribute, under a nondisclosure agreement, private data for the assessors to reference. This allows partners to protect their competitive formulations while providing transparency based on rigorous third-party assessment.
ChemFORWARD was selected from a pool of high-potential projects from around the world that are striving to address tough environmental problems ranging from increasing low-income households’ access to renewable energy to mitigating climate impacts on agriculture. A committee of both Harvard and outside experts evaluated the nominees against the following criteria: innovation, effectiveness, significance, and transferability.
The award will be presented to the partners during a celebration hosted at Harvard Kennedy School on March 26.
