From July 5th to 8th, 2015, the 7th International Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry, GSC-7, was held at the Hitotsubashi Hall, National Center of Sciences Building, Tokyo, Japan, as a joint event with the 4th JACI/GSC symposium, on the theme of “Toward New Developments in GSC”. The conference was organized by the Green & Sustainable Chemistry Network, GSCN, under the Japan Association of Chemical Innovation, JACI.
Since the first conference of GSC Tokyo 2003, Japan, was held on March, 2003, this series of International Conference on GSC were held as bi-annual conferences alternately in Aseanian Region, North America, and Europe. Following the 2nd GSC at Washington DC, USA, 2005, the 3rd at Delft, The Netherlands, 2007, the 4th at Beijing, China, 2009, the 5th at Washington DC, USA, 2011, and the 6th at Nottingham, UK, 2013, the conference came back to its birthplace, Tokyo, Japan, after 12 years.
Three concepts were proposed when the first conference of GSC was panned and conducted in 2003: Internationality, equal contribution by academia, industry and governments, and covering a very broad range of topics from basic research to real industry. The organizing committee of GSC-7 organized under the leadership of Kyohei Takahashi, the President of JACI, succeeded such three concepts. Namely, world top leaders from academia, industry and governments working in and for GSC were invited to contribute to GSC-7. Through the lectures, panel discussion and poster presentations, current framework in global cooperation was drawn and the global basis for the development of cutting edge science and technologies was strengthened. During the conference, three GSC awards presented from the Japanese Ministers, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and Ministry of Environment, and the achievements of awardees were celebrated. In addition, Asian students were financially supported to join the conference by the Japan-Asia Youth Exchange Program in Science (SAKURA Exchange Program in Science), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). Student forum was held to encourage interpersonal and intercultural exchange among young people with great success.
The most meaningful outcome of the first GSC conference was the GSC Tokyo statement, 2003[1], reported by Paul Anastas, UPA, and Shun-Ichi Murahashi, Okayama Univ. of Science, on the declaration statement which resulted from discussions at the conference. In this statement, the following sentence was found: “we recognize that it is of the utmost importance for chemistry and chemical technology to be safe, useful, and also to enjoy public trust. Moreover, respect for the environment and consideration of the limited availability of resources and energy must become integral components of the planning, development and application of chemical technologies. This is a common issue for all sciences in the modern age.”
After a decade, both circumstances surrounding chemical industry and awareness of chemical industry have fully been changed. We recognized that nowadays the concepts proposed in the GSC Tokyo statement, 2003, became common sense for all those people who are working in chemistry including industry, academia, governments and education. However, as a result of discussions made in GSC-7, we concluded to transmit the following new declaration statement as a consensus of the international advisory board and organizing committee members. The concepts of GSC has been spreading and further became important to develop solutions for global long-term issues.
Tokyo GSC Statement 2015
We, the participants of the 7th International GSC Conference Tokyo (GSC-7) and 4th JACI/GSC Symposium make the following declaration to promote “Green and Sustainable Chemistry (GSC)” as a key initiative in the ongoing efforts to achieve global sustainable development.
The global chemistry community has been addressing future-oriented research, innovation, education, and development towards environmentally-benign systems, processes, and products for the sustainable development of society.
In response to the Rio Declaration at the Earth Summit in 1992 and subsequent global Declarations, the global chemistry community has been working on challenges in a unified manner linking academia, industry, and government with a common focus to advance the adoption and uptake of Green and Sustainable Chemistry. The outcomes include the pursuance of co-existence with the global environment, the satisfaction of society’s needs, and economic rationality. These goals should be pursued with consideration for improved quality, performance, and job creation as well as health, safety, the environment across the life cycles of chemical products, their design, selection of raw materials, processing, use, recycling, and final disposal towards a Circular Economy.
Long-term global issues, in areas such as food and water security of supply, energy generation and consumption, resource efficiency, emerging markets, and technological advances and responsible industrial practices have increasingly become major and complicated societal concerns requiring serious attention and innovative solutions within a tight timeline. Therefore, expectations are growing for innovations, based on the chemical sciences and technologies, as driving forces to solve such issues and to achieve the sustainable development of society with enhanced quality of life and well-being.
These significant global issues will best be addressed through promotion of the interdisciplinary understanding of Green and Sustainable Chemistry throughout the discussion of “Toward New Developments in GSC.”
The global chemistry community will advance Green and Sustainable Chemistry through global partnership and collaboration and by bridging the boundaries that traditionally separate disciplines, academia, industries, consumers, governments, and nations.
July 8, 2015
Kyohei Takahashi on behalf of Organizing Committee
Milton Hearn AM, David Constable, Sir Martyn Poliakoff, Masahiko Matsukata
on behalf of International Advisory Board of 7th International GSC Conference Tokyo (GSC-7), Japan, July 5-8, 2015
This statement was delivered in the Closing Remarks by Hiroaki Ishizuka, Vice President of JACI. The next international conference of GSC-8 will be held in 2017 in Australia. We hope that such basic concepts will be succeeded and further developed among all those who are concerned about GSC.
Reference
- In News and Views, Green Chem., 2003, 5, G74-G74.
