Innovating with Conscious Chemistry

Last week we dipped our toe into how Conscious Chemistry™ is essentially taking green chemistry to the next level. While this may sound like a big statement—we are now going to take a deeper look into the meaning behind Conscious Chemistry™ and how it all relates to the work we are doing at Pantheon Enterprises.

To kick off this discussion, let’s first get our head wrapped around what green chemistry means. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), green chemistry is “the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances.” Paul Anastas and John Warner built upon this concept and developed the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry in 1998. You can check them out below:

1.    Prevent waste
2.    Maximize atom economy
3.    Design less hazardous chemical syntheses
4.    Design safer chemicals and products.
5.    Use safer solvents and reaction conditions
6.    Increase energy efficiency
7.    Use renewable feedstocks
8.    Avoid chemical derivatives
9.    Use catalysts, not stoichiometric reagents
10.  Design chemicals and products to degrade after use
11.  Analyze in real time to prevent pollution
12.  Minimize the potential for accidents

These fundamentals have guided ground-breaking work in the chemical industry. But we quickly realized as a company whose mission is to Sustain Better Life that we could still do better. So in order to reach our goal and innovate responsibly, we decided to create our own set of standards. That’s when our Principles of Conscious Chemistry were born. Let’s take a closer look below:

1. Lead With Awareness: Research, assess, and observe all possible and potential effects a product may have on people, environments, and ecosystems, not just the primary intended outcomes. Seek to eliminate or minimize unintended negative effects by considering:
·         Human health and safety risks.
·         Impacts on ecosystems.
·         Total product life cycle costs (costs and environmental impacts associated with product creation, production, packaging, usage, disposal, and clean-up)

2. Think Systematically: Recognizing that all life is interconnected, consider the implications and effects of the chemical product on the people, ecosystems, and environments touched by the product during its life cycle.

3. Cause No Harm: Design products to create the desired effects without causing harm to people or natural systems.

4. Use Nature as a Design Template: Natural systems, including human beings, have evolved over 3.8 billion years, teaching us many lessons along the way. As reflected by the rapidly growing field of Biomimicry, nature holds infinite keys to designing solutions to address human needs, wants and challenges. For better chemical design, we should observe the patterns, structures, and systems in nature as a foundation for creating safer, more effective products and solutions.

5. Design for Efficiency: Use the least amount of energy and materials to generate the greatest return. When possible, use renewable raw materials.

6. Design for Specificity: Design for specific, limited effects, minimizing potential for unintended negative side effects.

7. Design for Disintegration: Design products that work quickly and efficiently then disintegrate without leaving toxic residues.

8. Produce Superior Results: Conscious Chemistry must be effective chemistry. Conscious products should yield superior results in addition to lowering the risk of negative consequences associated with more toxic alternatives.

9. Create Commercially Sustainable Solutions: Conscious Chemistry must be coupled with Conscious Capitalism™. Our products must be beneficial to all stakeholders, economically sustainable, and profitable.

10. Commit to Continual Improvement: We will not let perfection be the enemy of progress—we will continue to create solutions that are better than existing options, even if they are not perfect. We will continue to forge ahead, creating new products and improving existing ones in effort to create a safer, healthier planet.

While there are commonalities between the two sets of principles, what makes ours stand apart are the values that are important to us as a company—sustainability, biomimicry and Conscious Capitalism.

So when you use a Pantheon product, rest assured that it is created mindfully by one of our chemists to give you top notch performance without any toxic tradeoffs.

To put it simply—no hazards, no toxins, no harm. Just safety, transparency and Conscious Chemistry™.

Which Principle of Conscious Chemistry resonates with you the most?