Scholar discusses green chemistry and sustainability

Businesses can be a very powerful and positive force for the environment, according to Dr. Lauren G. Heine, director of Applied Science at GreenBlue Institute in Charlottesville, Va.

"By applying the principles of green chemistry and engineering to their operations, organizations eliminate waste and toxics and become more economically and environmentally sustainable," said Heine. "These projects have resulted in improved environmental performance and hundreds of thousands of dollars of economic benefit."

Heine delivered a lecture titled "Profits and the Earth: Can Both Be Green?," on Monday at Hendrix College.

Sustainable products meet market requirements, have positive social effects, are safe for humans and the environment and are renewable and perpetually recyclable, Heine said.

The environmental impact of products is most significantly influenced during the design stage, Heine said.

"The problem is not business growth, but the unintended consequence of poor design," she said.

Heine cited several examples of sustainable business practices, including Shaw recyclable carpet tiles, a Dow Agrocsciences termiticide and Kodak single-use cameras. Kodak has recycled more than 400 million cameras, 71 million pounds of cameras have been diverted from landfills and new products have been produced from 86 percent recycled or reused materials, she said.

There is an increasing demand among consumers for green products and companies such as Nike, Herman Miller and Coca-Cola have responded, Heine said. Consumer demand has created more opportunity for chemists and engineers to design innovative processes that support sustainability, she added.

Public policy must also support sustainability, Heine said.

"Policy is absolutely critical," she said. The U.S., however, is behind Europe and Asia, where there are innovative policies on sustainability practices that influence the global economy.

The success of sustainability requires a synergistic partnership between science and business.

"It takes all kinds, scientists, purchasers and marketing," said Heine. "There's really a role for everybody in sustainability."

Heine joined GreenBlue after four years with Zero Waste Alliance in Portland, Ore., where she was the director of Green Chemistry and Engineering. Prior to that, she was a Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., where she worked with the Green Chemistry Program in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics to promote research and development of products and processes that have benign human and environmental health impacts.

Heine's visit to Hendrix was sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Marshall T. Steel Center and the Hendrix chapter of the American Chemical Society.

(Staff Writer Rob O'Connor can be reached at rob.oconnor@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1240.)