The earth’s population has grown by more than five billion people over the past century, and in the next four decades, it will grow by two billion more. With a booming population comes the urgent need for sustainable sources of energy, affordable food supply, adequate housing, and clean water. As chemistry provides the building blocks for more than 95% of the world’s produced goods, uncovering sustainable chemistry solutions is critical to meeting these global needs. According to The Dow Chemical Co. (Midlands, Mich.; www.dow.com), key to developing these solutions is building a robust global dialogue that offers public and private sectors the opportunity to collaborate around sustainable chemistry in new and innovative ways.
On Tuesday, Aug. 16, at 11 a.m. ET, 30 leading global thinkers will convene during The Future of Sustainable Chemistry, a virtual conference, to explore how sustainable chemistry can be used to help solve some of the world’s most complex challenges. The 30 speakers presented in the online conference are on the forefront of sustainable chemistry, striving to understand, teach and facilitate an important shift occurring in chemistry today. Featured speakers include: John Warner, co-founder of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, Tariq Banur, director of the Division for Sustainable Development at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs; John Elkington, author and co-founder of SustainAbility; and Daniel Esty, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), and co-author of Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage.
“Collaboration between chemists, industry, academia, NGOs and government is essential to uncover truly sustainable solutions to meet complex global challenges,” says Theresa Kotanchek, vice president of Sustainable Technologies at Dow. “Through an open, online forum, The Future of Sustainable Chemistry will help move the conversation forward, and encourage global collaboration to help build a safer, cleaner and more sustainable world for future generations.”
During the online conference, which is open to all at http://futurewecreate.com, participants will have the opportunity to engage in a real-time online discussion, building a rich global dialogue. Attendees will also have the opportunity to interact with featured speakers and other participants via digital and social media channels, adding their voices to the overall dialogue on sustainable chemistry. Leading up to the event, visitors will be able to preview a trailer describing the conference as well as see a full listing of conference speakers. Follow The Future We Create on Facebook and Twitter to participate.
The Future of Sustainable Chemistry is the third virtual conference in The Future We Create series. The first and second virtual conferences, The Future of Women in Chemistry and Science, and The Future of Water, were held earlier in the year, as part of Dow’s commitment to help encourage interest in chemistry among young people, and to generate enthusiasm for the creative future of the science during the International Year of Chemistry (IYC).
Source: www.dow.com