New Tool Measures Corporate Progress Towards Safer Chemicals

Third-Party Benchmark Designed to Help Reduce Public Health & Environmental Risks from Chemical Exposure for Health Care Industry, Retail Stores, Socially Responsible Investors and other Stakeholders

DECEMBER 8, 2014: A group of corporate and NGO leaders today released a new tool for assessing leadership in corporate chemicals management. The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) provides the first-ever common metric of its kind for publicly benchmarking corporate chemicals management and profiling leadership companies.
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said Dr. Mark Rossi, Co-Director of the nonprofit Clean Production Action and Chair and Founder of BizNGO, who released the Chemical Footprint Project today with the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production and Pure Strategies. “The CFP finally establishes a meaningful measurement of overall corporate performance to safer chemicals in products and supply chains. We look forward to engaging business leaders in tracking and disclosing their Chemical Footprints.”
Business leaders are moving ahead of regulations to avoid chemicals of high concern to human health or the environment in their products and supply chains. They are meeting the needs of customers large and small who are concerned with toxic chemicals in products. From health care to retail, purchasers are seeking products made with inherently safer chemicals. Now these purchasers will have a tool to quickly compare and benchmark suppliers. In addition, socially responsible investment firms can use this new tool to evaluate companies on their chemical management and select companies for investment.
Similar to Carbon Footprinting, Chemical Footprinting can apply to any business sector. Retailers, health care organizations, governments, and investors all see value in a comprehensive measure of business progress to safer chemicals. “CFP is a market differentiator and provides a competitive advantage for business leaders,” said Roger McFadden of Staples, Inc. “This new tool will add a level of transparency and help companies mitigate reputational and regulatory risks and exploit opportunities afforded by moving to safer chemicals.”
“Hazardous chemicals impose a heavy burden on workers, communities and the environment and present reputational, regulatory, and reformulation risks across a broad range of industry sectors. Investors need to understand how companies are meaningfully managing these risks,” said Susan Baker of Trillium Asset Management, LLC.
The CFP will enable purchasers to preferentially select suppliers and investors to integrate chemical risk into their sustainability analyses and investments. The CFP results enable brands to market their progress and success in using safer chemicals.
The CFP Steering Committee members include representatives from: Target Corporation, Staples, Inc., Boston Common Asset Management, Kaiser Permanente, Trillium Asset Management, LLC, Partners Healthcare, ChemSec, Dignity Health, Environmental Defense Fund, Investor Environmental Health Network, and the U.S. Green Building Council, among others.
The CFP is the first initiative to publicly measure overall corporate chemicals management performance by evaluating:
• Management Strategy
• Chemical Inventory
• Progress Measurement
• Public Disclosure
For more information about the Chemical Footprint Project, see www.chemicalfootprint.org.

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The Chemical Footprint Project was founded by the environmental non-profit Clean Production Action, the research institute The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the sustainability consultancy Pure Strategies. Its mission is to transform global chemical use by measuring and disclosing data on business progress to safer chemicals.
The CFP aims to:
• Establish a common metric for assessing progress to inherently safer chemicals,
• Bring transparency to chemicals management practices, and
• Benchmark company performance
Clean Production Action is an environmental organization that advances safer alternatives to toxic chemicals through its GreenScreen® and BizNGO programs. BizNGO is a unique collaboration of businesses and NGOs working together to promote safer chemicals and drive innovation into and across supply chains and government regulations.
The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production is a research institute that works collaboratively with citizens, workers, businesses, and governments to create healthy work environments, viable businesses, and thriving communities that support sustainable production and consumption.
Pure Strategies is a leading sustainability consultancy that helps companies improve environmental and social performance through green product design and production, sustainable materials, strong community relationships, and transparent measures of progress.

This release was originally published by The Chemical Footprint Project which is solely responsible for its content.