REACH and Sustainable Industrial Chemistry

The REACH legislation will improve the life of all citizens because it concerns more than 30000 substances currently used in everyday products. At the same time, REACH will provide important opportunities for European industry. This is true for the chemicals industry itself. But REACH will also provide important opportunities to other industries that look to the chemicals industry as a driver of irmovation and as key to resolving critical challenges, such as higher energy efficiency and combating climate change. 

There are several beneficial characteristics of REACH for both companies and society [86-88]  

On a long-term view REACH legislation represents the way to introduce traceability of chemical products, for example, to include in the products and their chain of production the information on the production method and their impact on the environment. Notwithstanding the obvious strong resistance and difficulties 

Including the method of production and its impact on environment and health on the trading cost of chemical products will be a relevant boost to the introduction of new advanced processes/technologies and thus for innovation and sustainability. 

The chemical industry is a high-tech sector in which competiveness has long been dominated by the capacity of companies to be innovative. The percentage of annual budget dedicated to R D was thus nearly twice that of the mean value in the manufacture sector. This picture has changed in the last one-two decades, in parallel with the change of the overall market and the situation of chemical production in the world. 

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