A Horizon Scan to support Chemical Pollution related policymaking for sustainable and climate resilient economies

Christopher Green; Antoaneta Bilyanska; Mags Bradley; Jason Dinsdale; Lorraine Hutt; Thomas Backhaus; Frank Boons; David Bott; Chris Collins; Sarah E Cornell; Mark Craig; Michael Depledge; Bob Diderich; Richard Fuller; Tamara S Galloway; Gary R Hutchison; Nicola Ingrey; Andrew C Johnson; Rachael Kupka; Peter Matthiessen; Robin Oliver; Stewart Owen; Susan Owens; John Pickett; Sam Robinson; Kerry Sims; Pete Smith; John P Sumpter; Svetlana Tretsiakova-McNally; Mengjiao Wang; Tom Welton; Katherine J Willis; Iseult Lynch

doi:10.1002/etc.5620

A Horizon Scan to support Chemical Pollution related policymaking for sustainable and climate resilient economies

Christopher Green, Antoaneta Bilyanska, Mags Bradley, Jason Dinsdale, Lorraine Hutt, Thomas Backhaus, Frank Boons, David Bott, Chris Collins, Sarah E Cornell, Mark Craig, Michael Depledge, Bob Diderich, Richard Fuller, Tamara S Galloway, Gary R Hutchison, Nicola Ingrey, Andrew C Johnson, Rachael Kupka, Peter MatthiessenRobin Oliver, Stewart Owen, Susan Owens, John Pickett, Sam Robinson, Kerry Sims, Pete Smith, John P Sumpter, Svetlana Tretsiakova-McNally, Mengjiao Wang, Tom Welton, Katherine J Willis, Iseult Lynch^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Whilst chemicals are vital to modern society through materials, agriculture, textiles, new technology, medicines and consumer goods, their use is not without risks. Unfortunately, our resources seem inadequate to address the breadth of chemicals challenges to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important we use our intelligence and knowledge wisely to prepare for what lies ahead. This study used a Delphi-style approach to horizon scan future chemical threats that need to be considered in the setting of chemicals and environmental policy, which involved a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-national panel of 25 scientists and practitioners (mainly from the UK, Europe and other industrialised nations) in a 3-stage process. 15 issues were shortlisted (from a nominated list of 48), considered by the panel to hold global relevance. The issues span from the need for new chemical manufacturing (including transitioning to non-fossil fuel feedstocks), challenges from novel materials, food imports, landfills and tyre wear, and opportunities from Artificial Intelligence, greater data transparency and the weight of evidence approach. The 15 issues can be divided into three classes; new perspectives on historic but insufficiently appreciated chemicals/issues; new or relatively new products and their associated industries, and thinking through approaches we can use to meet these challenges. Chemicals are one threat amongst many that influence the environment and human health, and interlinkages with wider issues such as climate change, and how we mitigate these, were clear in this exercise. The horizon scan highlights the value of thinking broadly and consulting widely, considering systems approaches to ensure that interventions appreciate synergies and avoid harmful trade-offs in other areas. We recommend further collaboration between researchers, industry, regulators and policy makers to perform horizon scanning to inform policy making and to develop our ability to meet these challenges, and especially to extend the approach to consider also concerns from countries with developing economies.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1212-1228
Number of pages	17
Journal	Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry
Volume	42
Issue number	6
Early online date	8 May 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5620
Publication status	Published - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank the Chemicals, Pesticides and Hazardous Wastes Team within the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency's Horizon Scanning & Futures Team for supporting this exercise. We thank the Defra steering group for their comments throughout the process. We also thank additional experts engaged by panelists and involved in the nomination of issues: the Sustainable Consumption Institute's Sustainable Materials for Consumer Products Working Group (biodegradable chemicals and nonvirgin feedstocks); M. Scheringer, N. V. Urho, Z. Wang, M. Diamond, and D. Santillo (maximizing synergies); I. Cousins and K. Bridgden (precedents set by the perfluoroalkyl substances experience); L. Schaefli (childhood lead poisoning); R. Blackburn and P. Goswami (development of a sustainable future fibers industry); and the Royal Society for Chemistry (green‐bioderived chemicals). The findings and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of their organizations.

Data Availability Statement

All data are included in the Supporting Information for publication online.

Keywords

horizon scanning
chemical pollution
early warning
emerging risk
chemicals management
sustainable chemicals
climate change
biodiversity boss

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

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© 2023 Crown copyright and The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC. This article is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the King's Printer for Scotland. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 1.24 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Green, C., Bilyanska, A., Bradley, M., Dinsdale, J., Hutt, L., Backhaus, T., Boons, F., Bott, D., Collins, C., Cornell, S. E., Craig, M., Depledge, M., Diderich, B., Fuller, R., Galloway, T. S., Hutchison, G. R., Ingrey, N., Johnson, A. C., Kupka, R., ... Lynch, I. (2023). A Horizon Scan to support Chemical Pollution related policymaking for sustainable and climate resilient economies. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 42(6), 1212-1228. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5620

Green, C, Bilyanska, A, Bradley, M, Dinsdale, J, Hutt, L, Backhaus, T, Boons, F, Bott, D, Collins, C, Cornell, SE, Craig, M, Depledge, M, Diderich, B, Fuller, R, Galloway, TS, Hutchison, GR, Ingrey, N, Johnson, AC, Kupka, R, Matthiessen, P, Oliver, R, Owen, S, Owens, S, Pickett, J, Robinson, S, Sims, K, Smith, P, Sumpter, JP, Tretsiakova-McNally, S, Wang, M, Welton, T, Willis, KJ & Lynch, I 2023, 'A Horizon Scan to support Chemical Pollution related policymaking for sustainable and climate resilient economies', Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, vol. 42, no. 6, pp. 1212-1228. https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.5620

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abstract = "Whilst chemicals are vital to modern society through materials, agriculture, textiles, new technology, medicines and consumer goods, their use is not without risks. Unfortunately, our resources seem inadequate to address the breadth of chemicals challenges to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important we use our intelligence and knowledge wisely to prepare for what lies ahead. This study used a Delphi-style approach to horizon scan future chemical threats that need to be considered in the setting of chemicals and environmental policy, which involved a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-national panel of 25 scientists and practitioners (mainly from the UK, Europe and other industrialised nations) in a 3-stage process. 15 issues were shortlisted (from a nominated list of 48), considered by the panel to hold global relevance. The issues span from the need for new chemical manufacturing (including transitioning to non-fossil fuel feedstocks), challenges from novel materials, food imports, landfills and tyre wear, and opportunities from Artificial Intelligence, greater data transparency and the weight of evidence approach. The 15 issues can be divided into three classes; new perspectives on historic but insufficiently appreciated chemicals/issues; new or relatively new products and their associated industries, and thinking through approaches we can use to meet these challenges. Chemicals are one threat amongst many that influence the environment and human health, and interlinkages with wider issues such as climate change, and how we mitigate these, were clear in this exercise. The horizon scan highlights the value of thinking broadly and consulting widely, considering systems approaches to ensure that interventions appreciate synergies and avoid harmful trade-offs in other areas. We recommend further collaboration between researchers, industry, regulators and policy makers to perform horizon scanning to inform policy making and to develop our ability to meet these challenges, and especially to extend the approach to consider also concerns from countries with developing economies.",

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note = "Funding Information: We thank the Chemicals, Pesticides and Hazardous Wastes Team within the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency's Horizon Scanning & Futures Team for supporting this exercise. We thank the Defra steering group for their comments throughout the process. We also thank additional experts engaged by panelists and involved in the nomination of issues: the Sustainable Consumption Institute's Sustainable Materials for Consumer Products Working Group (biodegradable chemicals and nonvirgin feedstocks); M. Scheringer, N. V. Urho, Z. Wang, M. Diamond, and D. Santillo (maximizing synergies); I. Cousins and K. Bridgden (precedents set by the perfluoroalkyl substances experience); L. Schaefli (childhood lead poisoning); R. Blackburn and P. Goswami (development of a sustainable future fibers industry); and the Royal Society for Chemistry (green‐bioderived chemicals). The findings and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of their organizations. ",

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N2 - Whilst chemicals are vital to modern society through materials, agriculture, textiles, new technology, medicines and consumer goods, their use is not without risks. Unfortunately, our resources seem inadequate to address the breadth of chemicals challenges to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important we use our intelligence and knowledge wisely to prepare for what lies ahead. This study used a Delphi-style approach to horizon scan future chemical threats that need to be considered in the setting of chemicals and environmental policy, which involved a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-national panel of 25 scientists and practitioners (mainly from the UK, Europe and other industrialised nations) in a 3-stage process. 15 issues were shortlisted (from a nominated list of 48), considered by the panel to hold global relevance. The issues span from the need for new chemical manufacturing (including transitioning to non-fossil fuel feedstocks), challenges from novel materials, food imports, landfills and tyre wear, and opportunities from Artificial Intelligence, greater data transparency and the weight of evidence approach. The 15 issues can be divided into three classes; new perspectives on historic but insufficiently appreciated chemicals/issues; new or relatively new products and their associated industries, and thinking through approaches we can use to meet these challenges. Chemicals are one threat amongst many that influence the environment and human health, and interlinkages with wider issues such as climate change, and how we mitigate these, were clear in this exercise. The horizon scan highlights the value of thinking broadly and consulting widely, considering systems approaches to ensure that interventions appreciate synergies and avoid harmful trade-offs in other areas. We recommend further collaboration between researchers, industry, regulators and policy makers to perform horizon scanning to inform policy making and to develop our ability to meet these challenges, and especially to extend the approach to consider also concerns from countries with developing economies.

AB - Whilst chemicals are vital to modern society through materials, agriculture, textiles, new technology, medicines and consumer goods, their use is not without risks. Unfortunately, our resources seem inadequate to address the breadth of chemicals challenges to the environment and human health. Therefore, it is important we use our intelligence and knowledge wisely to prepare for what lies ahead. This study used a Delphi-style approach to horizon scan future chemical threats that need to be considered in the setting of chemicals and environmental policy, which involved a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral and multi-national panel of 25 scientists and practitioners (mainly from the UK, Europe and other industrialised nations) in a 3-stage process. 15 issues were shortlisted (from a nominated list of 48), considered by the panel to hold global relevance. The issues span from the need for new chemical manufacturing (including transitioning to non-fossil fuel feedstocks), challenges from novel materials, food imports, landfills and tyre wear, and opportunities from Artificial Intelligence, greater data transparency and the weight of evidence approach. The 15 issues can be divided into three classes; new perspectives on historic but insufficiently appreciated chemicals/issues; new or relatively new products and their associated industries, and thinking through approaches we can use to meet these challenges. Chemicals are one threat amongst many that influence the environment and human health, and interlinkages with wider issues such as climate change, and how we mitigate these, were clear in this exercise. The horizon scan highlights the value of thinking broadly and consulting widely, considering systems approaches to ensure that interventions appreciate synergies and avoid harmful trade-offs in other areas. We recommend further collaboration between researchers, industry, regulators and policy makers to perform horizon scanning to inform policy making and to develop our ability to meet these challenges, and especially to extend the approach to consider also concerns from countries with developing economies.

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A Horizon Scan to support Chemical Pollution related policymaking for sustainable and climate resilient economies

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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Cite this