Dr. Anastas’ breakthrough work in the laboratory has spurred economic incentives for reducing industrial waste around the world. His voluntary, non-regulatory approach that makes environmental improvements attractive to industry is addressing an issue of global proportion one molecule at a time and making significant contributions toward improving the health of our planet.

Following graduate work at Brandeis University, Dr. Anastas began to formulate a broad vision for change in the early 1990s while serving in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Recognizing that wastes released into the environment represent an economic investment for manufacturers, he sought to redesign benign chemical processes and products at the molecular level, thereby eliminating potential wastes before they are ever produced. For industry, such changes bring about increased efficiency in processes, increased worker safety, decreased environmental pollution, and reduced costs associated with waste handling, disposal litigation and regulatory control. So began the “green chemistry” movement.

In order to help build momentum for his vision, Dr. Anastas convinced the EPA in 1996 to sponsor the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards, which have since become the only presidential-level award in the chemical sciences. It has inspired hundreds of companies, including Dow Agrosciences, Bayer Corporation and Pfizer, Inc., to embrace his “Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry,” outlined in his book (co-authored with Dr. John Warner), Green Chemistry, Theory and Practice. From 1996 to 2004, the Challenge Awards have recognized technologies that have eliminated millions of pounds of hazardous chemicals and solvents, saved millions of gallons of water, and eliminated millions of pounds of carbon dioxide that otherwise would have been released into the air.

In order to fund basic research in green chemistry, Dr. Anastas created an ongoing research and development collaboration between the EPA and the National Science Foundation. The Technology for Sustainable Environment Program has stimulated and funded tens of millions of dollars in fundamental research that advances the discovery, development and use of innovative technologies and approaches to avoid or minimize the generation of pollutants at the source.

In 1997, Dr. Anastas was the driving force behind the founding of the Green Chemistry Institute (GCI), an organization created to foster collaborations among government, industry and academia. GCI later merged with the American Chemical Society (ACS), fundamentally changing the environmental focus of the ACS from cleanup to prevention. Today, the institute has 25 international chapters and continues to grow in both size and influence.