Our Sustainable Future
HIGHLIGHTS
e humans are consumers. We consume food. We consume gasoline and
electricity. We consume paper and plastics, cotton and polyester. And
above all, we consume chemicals, millions and millions of tons of chemi-
cals that go into manufacturing every product we buy and sell.
The great majority of these chemicals come from materials that we extract from the Earth,
things such as oil, coal, natural gas, and a wide variety of minerals. While we once thought,
perhaps naively, that the supplies of these materials were limitless, we now know this to be
untrue. Just look at the price of a gallon of gasoline today, a consequence of a shortage of oil
at a time when the world’s growing population is demanding more of it.
And we also know that extracting those materials from the Earth and turning them into
the cornucopia of products that make modern society possible are not without other costs
— deforestation, polluted waterways, open-pit mines, Superfund sites, and global climate
change, to name a few. Clearly, we humans cannot keep using resources in such an unrestrained way.
◆ Sustainability is environmentally benign.
◆ The principles of sustainability should be
an integral part of all
future manufacturing
processes.
◆ Green chemistry
techniques – designing things so they are
sustainable – leads
to technology that is
environmentally and
economically viable.
“The world is becoming aware of this at every level. Companies are becoming aware of
it, governments are becoming aware of it, and the scientific community is beginning to
view it as a mission. View it — what do I mean by it: to try to continue to make many
of those things and provide many of those services in a way that doesn’t trash the planet,
in a way that keeps the planet going for future generations.”
Meeting Needs Today and Tomorrow
That was Ivan Amato, managing editor of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’s weekly
news magazine, which in August 2008 published a special issue devoted to sustainability.
What do we mean by sustainability? To put it simply, sustainability means meeting the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.
The issue of sustainability is not a new one. In 1798, The Reverend Thomas Robert
Malthus, an English economist, published a small treatise titled An Essay on the Principle of
Population. In this book, Malthus predicted that human population growth would outpace
our ability to produce food and other resources. Since then, many scientists, including
Nobel laureate Dr. Paul Ehrlich, have warned about resource shortages. In 1987, the United
Nations’ report “Our Common Future” drew worldwide attention to the notion of sustainable development.
◆ This year, green
chemistry techniques
will eliminate the
need for 193 million
pounds of hazardous
chemicals and solvents and save 21 billion gallons of water.
◆ As they strive to
become sustainable, more and more
chemical and pharmaceutical companies are embracing
green chemistry.
DiD YOU KNOW?
The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and uses 23 percent of the
world’s energy.
Only 10 percent of the electricity in an incandescent light bulb becomes light. The
other 90 percent is wasted as heat.
A compact uorescent light bulb uses 75 percent less energy than an incandescent
bulb – and it can last up to four years.
An energy-smart clothes washer can save more water in one year than one person
drinks in an entire lifetime.
80 percent of Earth’s original forest cover is gone.
