Planet Tracker Report Highlights ChemFORWARD's Vital Role in Driving Safer Plastic Additives
We're excited to announce the release of the new Planet Tracker report, "Toxic Additives: Analysing Product Portfolio Risk," which underscores the critical role of ChemFORWARD in bringing much-needed hazard transparency and safer alternatives to the plastics value chain. Directed at investors, the report's findings have immense significance for all ChemFORWARD stakeholders—from chemical suppliers and brands to investors and retailers.
The Benchmark for Chemical Risk Mapping
The Planet Tracker report provides a powerful endorsement and real-world application of the Chemical Hazard Data Trust, managed by ChemFORWARD. The report's comparison of data from the Data Trust with other public databases confirms that the Data Trust is the authoritative benchmark for both investors and corporates looking to accurately map and mitigate portfolio risk due to exposure to toxic chemicals. The report provides a powerful, independent endorsement of the Data Trust as the go-to resource for the financial community and corporate decision-makers.
Showcasing the Power of the Chemical Hazard Data Trust
By cross-referencing the chemical components of plastic additives with comprehensive hazard data, the report was able to:
Characterized 89% of Identified Chemicals for Human and Environmental Hazards: The report mapped 89% identified plastic additives to a ChemFORWARD Hazard Band (A, B, C, D, or F), which offers a summary of the overall hazard profile of a chemical (A, B, and C are considered “safer”).
Establish a New Baseline for Transparency: The analysis demonstrates how reliable hazard data can be used to assess product portfolio risk and establish a new baseline for industry transparency in plastic additives, despite the challenges of corporate disclosure.
Uncover Data Gaps: The report highlights a significant lack of transparency, noting that the chemical components could not be determined for 45% of the analyzed products; furthermore, there was no data on potential hazards for 11% of the products, underscoring ChemFORWARD's mission to fill critical data gaps.
A New Scorecard for Chemical Suppliers
The report effectively creates a transparency and risk scorecard by calculating an average hazard rating for 100 major plastic additive suppliers. This new view helps to:
Measure Transparency: It quantifies the share of a supplier's portfolio for which a chemical component could not be identified, i.e., "unidentified chemical" risk, and those with the most “undisclosed risk” from identified chemicals whose chemical hazard profiles are not shared with stakeholders.
Identify High-Concern Chemicals: It reveals that 25% of the characterized additives in the sample fell into the most hazardous categories (D or F), raising concern among investors and users of these products.
Incentivize Safer Chemistry: By showing which companies have a higher proportion of low-concern chemicals, the report incentivizes a transition to already known safer alternatives.
Highlighting the Plastic Additives Alternatives Finder
The Planet Tracker report relies on and endorses a key ChemFORWARD resource as a solution for companies navigating this transition: ChemFORWARD's Plastic Additives Optimization Tool.
This powerful, free tool helps corporates find "safer" alternatives to the hazardous additives they currently use, speeding up the move toward more sustainable and healthy chemistry.
The report's analysis reinforces the utility and imperative of this tool, as it confirms that a safer range of chemicals is available for many uses—around half of the characterized chemicals fall into the lower-concern category (A, B, or C).
Call to Action for the ChemFORWARD Community
This report proves that actionable chemical hazard data is the foundation for managing financial, reputational, and environmental risk. We urge our stakeholders to use the Planet Tracker findings to:
Fund Chemical Hazard Assessments: Encourage companies to fund assessments for "uncharacterized" chemicals to close data gaps and reduce risk.
Benchmark Portfolios: Suppliers and brands should use this methodology to rigorously assess their own product portfolios to quantify safer chemistry and prioritize substitution of high-hazard chemicals.
Find Safer Alternatives: Use the Plastic Additives Optimization Tool to find and implement verified safer alternatives immediately.
The growing scientific focus on the harms associated with plastic additives is a "ticking time bomb" for companies and their investors. Through collaboration and a shared data model, ChemFORWARD is providing the data to defuse it.
