After an extremely informative and content-rich week, Day 5 needed to promise something new...and it delivered. The focus of the day was the forward outlook, and included discussions on new developments in sustainability efforts, a short diversion into supply chain and the day—and the week—finished up with global approaches to new chemicals.

 

Day five started out with a thought-provoking talk from Gerald Breyer of Evonik on corporate responsibility in the sustainability space. Immediately following was a more data driven approach by Aad van Keulen of IHS focused on managing sustainability master data. The sustainability topic closed with a challenging talk by Karin Ekburg from Adidas on efforts from leading brands in the apparel industry to reach a state of zero discharge of hazardous chemicals—an admirable target.

 

The final session highlighted the global approach to new chemicals and included individual presentations on new chemical notifications systems worldwide, both for polymers and for chemicals in general, as well as the challenges of setting up a global test program.

 

ChemCon Europe in 2012 was extremely well attended and marked by broad-brush representation – from government, the chemical industry and specialist services firms worldwide. The interesting expert presentations, lively panel discussions and networking opportunities allowed powerful cross-pollination from these different centres of knowledge.

 

The busy city of Madrid was a perfect host location, and we look forward to the next ChemCon!