Sustainable Futures

• The winner of the Cooperative Agreement supporting Sustainable Futures Pilot Project is Purdue University / CERM.
  
  
• Upcoming training workshops in P2 Framework Models
  
  
• When sending in PMNs for the Sustainable Futures Project...

What is Sustainable Futures?

On December 11, 2002, EPA announced in the Federal Register [PDF] a voluntary pilot project, entitled Sustainable Futures.  The goal of this pilot project is to encourage the application of pollution prevention principles and the development of inherently low hazard new chemicals submitted as premanufacture notices (PMNs) under Section 5 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  The Agency seeks to gain additional data and experience regarding the pollution prevention, risk reduction, and source reduction benefits of the use of hazard, exposure, and risk screening methodologies such as EPA's Pollution Prevention (P2) Framework in new product development efforts.  

To encourage industry participation in this voluntary pilot project, the Agency will consider providing regulatory flexibility in the form of certain expedited PMN review.  For purposes of this voluntary pilot project, EPA will implement a program leading to the opportunity for simultaneous submissions of Test Market Exemption applications and PMNs on chemical substances for which the submitter demonstrates the application and use of the P2 Framework or other scientifically acceptable hazard and exposure screening methodologies.  This regulatory flexibility will have the effect of reducing the time to market for select new chemicals from 90 to 45 days.  

In order to qualify for this pilot project, and associated expedited review, companies subject to TSCA section 5 reporting requirements must demonstrate experience and competence with the P2 Framework or other scientifically acceptable approaches to chemical risk screening.  In order to do this, companies will need to:

1. Take necessary training;
   
2. Use hazard and exposure screening tools and demonstrate to EPA that model results were used to inform corporate decision-making. EPA wants submitters to use these tools to select safer new chemical alternatives to submit as new chemical notifications (and, where appropriate, to identify opportunities to eliminate or control exposures through process controls); and
   
3. Submit 5-10 successful (i.e., not regulated by EPA) PMNs or PMN exemption notices which have been developed using chemical hazard and exposure screening tools.  These submissions should also include documentation of chemicals evaluated, models used, endpoints on which decisions were based, and the submitter's perspectives on the extent to which the screening tools provided useful information to compare alternatives and select safer chemicals.

The Federal Register notice provides additional detail relating to the expedited review available under this pilot project and discusses criteria or factors EPA will consider to determine eligibility for the pilot project and associated expedited review.

Note: PMN submitters who want to participate in Sustainable Futures, please clearly state this fact in capital letters at the top of the cover letter for the PMN submission -- for example, SUSTAINABLE FUTURES or ATTN: SUSTAINABLE FUTURES. Thank you.

PLEASE NOTE: Some of the documents mentioned in this Section are in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). To view or print them you will need to have the Reader program installed on your computer. The Reader can be downloaded and used with no charge; check here for more information on the Reader.