Safely meeting demand for renewable energy with innovative material design for health and sustainability
In 2017, the Department of Materials Design and Innovation at the University of Buffalo, Clean Production Action, and Niagara Share created the Collaboratory for a Regenerative Environment (CoRE). CoRE brings together academic experts in materials design with entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations to accelerate clean production and sustainable materials in the renewable energy economy. Our innovative collaborations and data-driven tools enable business, government, and nonprofit leaders to identify and select inherently safer chemicals and sustainable materials for a healthy renewable energy economy. Over the past three years, CoRE has focused on the solar energy sector and its supply chains...
With investors and Chemical Footprint Project Signatories, we are tailoring the Chemical Footprint Survey for solar manufacturers to demonstrate for the solar industry and its supply chains how corporations can measure and reduce their chemical footprint. We are integrating market-shifting visualization tools into existing and new stakeholder collaborations to expand and hasten companies’ demands to reduce their chemical footprint.
Other collaborations include Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) that works to reduce corporate financial risks of toxic chemicals in products, manufacturing, and supply chains; BizNGO, a collaboration of businesses and advocacy organizations that advances safer chemicals and sustainable materials; and Chemical Footprint Project signatories—organizations that engage companies in reducing their chemical footprint, which include retailers, NGOs, health care organizations, and investors.