2024 End of Year News
Dear Friends of CPA,
I am pleased to share with you, for my last time, Clean Production Action’s end of year newsletter.
I have had a great 21 year run with you on our journey to eliminate toxic chemicals and replace them with safer solutions. Along the way, we:
- Made “Benchmark 1” the industry standard for chemicals of high concern (CoHCs) with GreenScreen®!
It was 2007 when we created the first publicly transparent chemical hazard assessment framework with the release of our report, The GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals: Evaluating Flame Retardants for TV Enclosures. Today, companies, governments, NGOs, and industry standards across the globe use GreenScreen is to identify safer chemicals, including TCO Certified, which uses GreenScreen to create its Accepted Substances List for electronics products.
- Integrated rigorous hazard assessments into environmentally preferable procurement with GreenScreen Certified®. We have certified over 290 products from 33 manufacturers across the globe, including in China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Taiwan, UK, and USA. On December 5th the US EPA recognized and included GreenScreen Certified® in its newly updated report, EPA’s Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing.
- Created the “chemical footprint” metric for measuring CoHCs within and across companies.
Our 7th Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) report released in December documented corporate leaders across sectors reducing their chemical footprints by 133 million pounds — a weight equivalent to 226 Airbus A380s (the world’s largest passenger aircraft)! Businesses from across diverse industry sectors – retail, building products and furnishings, household and personal products, electronics, medical equipment and supplies, and toys – demonstrate their chemicals management leadership by reporting to the CFP Survey. Additionally, Dr. Angela Pinilla of CPA was a technical reviewer in the just-released UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative report, Navigating Pollution: A Blueprint for the Banking Sector.
- Brought businesses, NGOs, governments, and investors together to create collective solutions to toxic chemicals through BizNGO. Our 19th Annual BizNGO Meeting in Boston highlighted the scope and depth of our collective work, including financial sector leadership, key performance indicators in the UN Global Framework on Chemicals, and corporate strategies to address environmental justice. Additionally, Kayla Powers of CPA announced the release of the BizNGO Guide to Advancing Environmental Justice through Safer Chemicals in Corporate Chemicals Management, which was the culmination of two years of work within the BizNGO DEI+EJ Work Group.
- Integrated working with the investor sector into CPA with the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN).
In 2018, Dr. Richard Liroff gifted IEHN to CPA upon his retirement. In 2024, IEHN members and partners engaged over 60 multinational companies in the consumer goods, basic materials, healthcare, renewable energy, and technology sectors in taking a hazard-based approach to chemicals management and using safer, more sustainable chemistries.
- Thank you Dr. Ronald W. Hart for 12 years of service on the CPA Board! We will miss your strategic, scientific, and financial guidance, and for ably guiding us with the Board in the transition from a fiscally-sponsored organization to an independent 501(c)3, non-profit organization.
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Welcome Susan Baker! Susan’s career focused on advancing sustainable and responsible investing. For more than 17 years she was a Director of Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium Asset Management. In Susan’s words: “I believe CPA’s role as an environmental health leader is more important than ever. It’s become abundantly clear that reducing toxic chemicals and investing in green solutions are essential to tackling the risks of climate change, biodiversity loss, and disproportionate harms to marginalized communities. I am excited to join CPA’s Board in furthering its mission.”
Finally, I am thrilled to announce our incoming Executive Director, beginning January 2, 2025, will be Derreck Kayongo. Derreck is a strategic leader who will bring new networks, ideas, and capacities for scaling the impacts of CPA. More to come from Derreck in 2025!
My last day with CPA will be January 10th. From there I will be skiing and hanging with family and friends before returning back to our field as an independent consultant.
Thank you to all of you for being part of the journey with me and the CPA team in transforming the chemical economy into one that is healthy for all people and the planet. And thank you to the CPA Board and staff for such an impactful journey and a beautiful send-off at BizNGO in Boston. As Dr. Ken Geiser said, “Mark, you are free now!”
Happy holidays and may our paths cross in the future!
Mark