Michael S. Regan 16th Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency | Official Website
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it is now accepting nominations for the 2025 Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. The awards recognize companies or institutions that have developed new green chemistry processes or products that protect human health and the environment. According to the EPA, these efforts have led to significant environmental benefits, innovation, and economic strengthening.
“Green chemistry is an important way to create products that prevent waste and increase resource efficiency. In recent years, we've seen tremendous innovation in transforming how we can more effectively use renewable feedstock, agricultural waste and bio-based proteins,” said Jennie Romer, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pollution Prevention at the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “The Green Chemistry Challenge Awards spotlight cutting-edge technologies and show us how green chemistry will continue to protect our environment and ensure we all have cleaner air and water.”
The 2025 competition includes six award categories. These include a category recognizing green chemistry technology that can prevent or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a category introduced last year emphasizing circularity through the design of greener chemicals and materials that can be continuously reused or remanufactured.
Nominations are due by December 13, 2024. An independent panel of technical experts convened by the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute will judge the nominations and make recommendations to the EPA for winners. The EPA anticipates announcing the awards in fall 2025.
Additionally, a webinar will be held on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, from 2-3 p.m. ET to educate stakeholders on the Green Chemistry Challenge Awards and the nomination process.
Since its inception over a quarter-century ago, the awards program has received more than 1,800 nominations and presented awards for 139 technologies that decrease hazardous chemicals usage, reduce costs, protect human health, and spur economic growth. Previous winners include a company that developed a textile dyeing process reducing water usage significantly compared to traditional methods and a university professor who refined agricultural waste into materials like lithium-ion batteries.
Winning technologies have annually reduced hundreds of millions of pounds of hazardous chemicals' use or generation while saving billions of gallons of water and eliminating billions of pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents.
More information on past award winners and how to submit entries can be found on EPA’s Green Chemistry website.
###
