Green chemistry for quality and environmental protection

“Green” has a positive sound with connotations of nature, health, and cleanliness and nowadays is particularly understood to mean “environmentally friendly.” However, there is no globally applicable industry standard that provides an accurate definition of environmental friendliness.

The development of new chemical products is increasingly dominated by environmental concerns. To give an example, the solvent content of products and base materials is one of the key indicators when it comes to defining how “green” a product is. Manufacturers explore the requirements they have to meet for developing “green systems,” which raw materials are best suited for this purpose, and where they can ideally be purchased. Furthermore, they need to be certain that the use of eco-friendly raw materials will not impact the application properties of their final products.

BYK has made it a principle to consider the issue within the scope of a complete system that it calls ”Greenability.” Customers can access the company’s BRIEF (BYK Regulatory Information Extensive Form) online at a dedicated website (www.byk.com/innovation/Greenability.html) to find out about the environmental compatibility of specific products. Together with REACH CEFIC questionnaires and other REACH documents (see also page 22), which can be downloaded from the website, the BRIEF documents provide answers to frequently asked questions.