How to measure green in chemistry?

Abstract

Green is a concept to express the degree of environmental burden caused by a product or service. Environmental burden is usually evaluated by 3 factors, i.e., by the bad effects on human health, by the bad effects on ecosystem and by the effects on depletion of energy and resources. This implies that it is necessary to have an integrated system with combined concept of life cycle assessment and risk assessment, but current methods/systems are far from perfect and new methods must be created by further efforts. Two kinds of criteria were used to evaluate technological/scientific values in Green & Sustainable Chemistry Awards in Japan; (1) and LCA like method to express lower burden on environment, (2) reduction of the use of highly hazardous substances.