Sustainable Futures

About Sustainable Futures

On this page:

What is the Sustainable Futures program?

The Sustainable Futures program provides the public with educational training workshops on chemical screening approaches and the use of EPA's computerized models and tools developed under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The program also encourages chemical developers to use EPA's models and methods to screen new chemicals for potential risks early in the development process. The goal is to produce safer chemicals more reliably and more quickly, saving time and money, and in turn, getting safer chemicals into the market. In some cases, it means providing alternatives to more risky chemicals -- which is pollution prevention in its purest form.

Read about models and methods to screen new chemicals.

In addition to the benefits of the training workshops, companies that graduate from Sustainable Futures can earn expedited review of TSCA section 5 for prescreened new chemical notices. Prescreening chemicals for hazard concerns helps companies anticipate and avoid developing chemicals of concern. Companies can instead develop and commercialize safer chemicals.

Read about:

Top of Page

Origin of Sustainable Futures

The 1976 TSCA mandated that EPA review new chemicals for potential toxicity and risk before they enter the marketplace. The law gives EPA 90 days to review new chemicals but does not require submitters of new chemical notices to conduct tests to determine potential concerns. Therefore, most new chemical notices that EPA reviews lack test data needed to fully estimate potential risks.

Read about:

Lacking experimental data, EPA has relied on screening methods to review and evaluate new chemicals under TSCA to help identify chemicals that could pose unreasonable risk. The methods, which EPA created, are the basis of the Sustainable Futures program and are available to the chemical industry and other stakeholders at no cost.

Top of Page

Developing the Sustainable Futures program

EPA packaged its chemical assessment methods developed through the new chemicals review program into the Pollution Prevention (P2) Framework, an instruction manual on the use of EPA TSCA models and tools, and in 1995 began to work with the chemical industry to help transfer the chemical screening methods to developers of new chemicals and new chemical products.

Sustainable Futures evolved out of the successful Eastman Kodak Project XL and PPG Industries Project XL, in which both XL partners investigated the applicability of the P2 Framework risk-screening methods. Project XL (eXellence and Leadership) was a voluntary national program in which EPA offered some flexibility in its regulations to encourage companies, communities and other project participants to develop and test cleaner, cheaper and smarter alternatives that could produce superior environmental results beyond those that would have been achieved under current regulations and policies.

EPA selected both P2 Framework-based XL projects to be "scaled-up" and offered nationwide. As a result, since 2002 when EPA launched the Sustainable Futures program, any company can become eligible for expedited Premanufacture Notice (PMN) review once available only to XL partners.

Industry response to Sustainable Futures has been positive. Hundreds of individuals representing chemical companies and other stakeholders have taken Sustainable Futures training. EPA has seen an increase in the percentage of PMNs submitted containing predictions from Sustainable Futures chemical risk screening methods.

Top of Page

The following companies have graduated from Sustainable Futures

  • PPG Industries
  • Eastman Kodak, Inc.
  • Cytec Industries, Inc.
  • Clariant Corporation
  • International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc.
  • NALCO Champion, An Ecolab Company
  • Chevron Phillips Chemical Company
  • Cabot Corporation
  • 3M
  • Givaudan Fragrances Corporation
  • Cargill Incorporated

PPG Industries and Eastman Kodak are considered to be Sustainable Futures graduates by virtue of their highly successful participation in Project XL, which provided the foundation for the Sustainable Futures program.

Sustainable Futures graduates have qualified for regulatory relief of prescreened low-hazard, low-risk premanufacture notifications (PMNs), which are submitted to EPA to review as new chemicals. Many other companies participating in Sustainable Futures have submitted enough prescreened PMNs to meet the graduation criteria and, as a result, the number of Sustainable Futures graduates is expected to increase.

Top of Page