[Dr. Paul Anastas discussed the application of Green Chemistry across industrial sectors.]
[More Summit photos here. Download Summary Report here. ]

A First-of-its-kind Summit of Scientific, Industrial, and Investment Leaders Assembled to Harness the Economic and Workforce Opportunities of Green Chemistry

Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, MA
October 31, 2007

Summary Notes Prepared by
Seth Itzkan, Planet-TECH Associates, seth.itzkan@gmail.com, and
John Michitson, Former City Council President, Haverhill, michitson@mitre.org

On October 31st, 2007, Northern Essex Community College hosted the Green Chemistry Business Summit - a first-of-its-kind event intended to harness the economic and workforce opportunities for clean manufacturing through Green Chemistry. To meet this objective, the Summit assembled professionals from scientific, industrial, academic, and investment sectors.

Keynote speakers included the two founders of Green Chemistry science: Dr. John Warner and Dr. Paul Anastas. Their joint appearance, a rare occurrence, indicated the importance of the Green Chemistry Business Summit as a benchmark in the evolution of Green Chemistry as a vehicle to stimulate economic growth. Additional keynotes included Dr. Berkeley Cue, retired Vice President of Pfizer, Bruce Rayner, Vice President for Technology Forecasters, and Daniel Hullah, Associate with Rockport Capital Partners. Greg Watson, Assistant Secretary for Clean Energy and Technology in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, delivered greetings from the Governor. Mr. Watson suggested there the efforts to support Green Chemistry in Massachusetts are complimentary the goals of the New England Clean Energy Council, which seeks to accelerate New England's clean energy economy. Summit organizers Seth Itzkan, of President of Planet-TECH Associates, and John Michitson of Haverhill, made opening remarks.

Themes

The Summit explored five facets germane to Green Chemistry business development. Each of these, listed below, is key to growing and maintaining a regional economic leadership in the field. They are:

1. Green Chemistry Science
2. Economic Opportunity for Industry
3. Investment Opportunities
4. Workforce Development Opportunities
5. Technology Transfer & Open Innovation

Findings

• Business Opportunity: Green Chemistry presents an enormous opportunity to harness clean economic growth. The applicable industries run the gamut from pharmaceuticals to electronics. Berkeley Cue of Pfizer showed that Green Chemistry can save the pharmaceutical industry $10B annually, $700M over the lifetime a typical product. There are also important regional opportunities. It was shown there are over 200 bio-pharmaceutical companies in Eastern Massachusetts, all of which can benefit from the cost saving potentials of Green Chemistry. Amy Cannon, Co-Founder of the Beyond Benign Foundation, discussed the potential role of Green Chemistry in supporting regional economic development. The benefits include attracting and maintaining companies, creating a steady supply of jobs, and using local resources.

• European Mandates: European and Asian mandates for toxic products reduction (such as REACH, WEEE, RoHS) are driving manufacturing changes here in the United States.

• International Competition: China and India are far ahead of the United States in Green Chemistry education and research. Not one U.S. chemistry department requires its students to take classes in toxicology.

• Workforce Development: Workforce development and training opportunities are starting to be developed here in Massachusetts to meet the emerging need for industry. David Hartleb of Northern Essex Community College and Mahesh Sharma of Cambridge College each spoke of initiatives their respective institutes are taking to address the need for training in Green Chemistry and related industries. Amy Cannon of the Beyond Benign Foundation discussed efforts underway to promote Green Chemistry curriculum in schools, including projects in collaboration with the Boston Museum of Science.

• Finance: The investment community is paying a growing interest to green technologies. Current areas of focus for Rockport Capital Partners include power electronics, battery technology, biofuels and building materials.

• Intellectual Property Management and Rapid R&D: Innovative models for rapid idea generation and research and development must be employed. The Open Innovation model was presented as ideal for fostering Green Chemistry research. Jon Cronin of InnoCentive discussed the "online marketplace for ideas" and the Innocentive approach of building a global community of solution providers. Innocentive has over 130,000 "solvers" in 175 countries and 60 industry disciplines that share in the global marketplace of industrial and scientific innovation.

• Culture Change: Culture change was often referred to as the key factor in affecting industrial adoption of Green Chemistry. Executives must begin to develop a "systems thinking" approach to product creation and degradation. They must consider a "cradle-to-cradle" perspective in the lifecycle management of their products.

• Cross Industry Collaboration: Cross industry collaboration was considered essential to regional economic development in Green Chemistry. Energy saving and environmentally beneficial innovations developed for one sector may have promise in others. Avenues for cross-sector collaboration and information sharing should be in place to support the growth of a regional economic development in Green Chemistry and other emerging clean technologies.

[Summit organizers John Michitson (left) and Seth Itzkan (right) with keynote presenter Dr. John Warner (center)]

Speakers

Greg Watson, Assistant Secretary for Clean Energy and Technology, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
John C. Warner, Ph.D., President and CTO, The Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry
Paul Anastas, Ph.D., Professor in the Practice of Green Chemistry, Yale University Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering
Berkeley Cue, Ph.D., Retired Pfizer VP; Creator, Pfizer’s Green Chemistry initiative
Amy Cannon, Ph.D., Co-Founder, Beyond Benign Foundation
David Hartleb, Ph.D., President, Northern Essex Community College (NECC)
Mahesh Sharma, Ph.D., President, Cambridge College
Bruce Rayner , Vice President and Director of Research and Consulting, Technology Forecasters, Inc.
Daniel Hullah, Associate, Rockport Capital Partners
Joel A. Tickner, ScD, Assistant Professor, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production UMASS/Lowell;
Eugene Buff, M.D., Ph.D., Consulting Director, Yet2.com, Inc.
Jon Cronin, Ph.D., Director, Sales, InnoCentive
Abigail A. Barrow, Ph.D., Director, Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center
University of Massachusetts

Organizers / Chairs

John C. Warner, Ph.D., - President and CTO, The Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry
John Michitson, Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council
Seth Itzkan, M.S., President, Planet-TECH Associates

Sponsors

Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
Merrimack Valley Venture Forum
Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council
Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry
Beyond Benign Foundation
Planet-TECH Associates

Attendees included

Cory Atkins, Massachusetts State Representative
Harriett Stanley, Massachusetts State Representative
Brian Dempsey, Massachusetts State Representative
Jim Fiorentini, Mayor, Haverhill, Massachusetts
Jim JaJuga, Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce
Pat Cloney, Director, Massachusetts Office of Business Development
Art Roberts, Massachusetts Office of Business Development, Industry Specialist for Defense and Alternative Energy

International Attendees

Sergey Tsyganov, Russian Federation of Basic Research
Erik Noaksson, Jegrelius Research Centre, JILU, Sweden
Tomas Ostberg, Jegrelius Research Centre, JILU, Sweden
Magnus Hedenmark, Jegrelius Research Centre, JILU, Sweden

Additional Information

Seth Itzkan, seth.itzkan@gmail.com
John Michitson, michitson@mitre.com

http://www.ivalley.org/greenchemistry

Opening remarks from Seth Itzkan

1. Welcome
- First of its kind event: Welcome to the Green Chemistry Business Summit. My name is Seth Itzkan. I am president of Planet-TECH Associates. We are research consultancy for sustainable economic development. Myself and John Michitson have helped organize this summit because of the promise for clean economic development we believe it holds for the Merrimack Valley.

This is a first-of-its-kind event. It is, as far as we know, the first gathering of scientists, industrialists, and investors specifically for the purpose of harnessing the business growth and workforce development opportunities made possible through Green Chemistry.

- Emerging Practice of Green Chemistry: As many of you know, Green Chemistry is the emerging practice of reducing or eliminating hazardous materials and processes in the creation of industrial and household products, from electronics to pharmaceuticals. We believe there is great economic and environmental promise for this innovation here in the Merrimack Valley and throughout the world.

- Novel Event (Warner & Anastas): This meeting is additionally novel because we have both founders of Green Chemistry under one roof. Dr. John Warner and Dr. Paul Anastas are internationally recognized as the pillars of Green Chemistry and are co-authors of the seminal work, Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. Their joint appearance together is a rare event and marks the importance of the Green Chemistry Business Summit as a landmark in the adoption of Green Chemistry as a vehicle for economic growth.

- Acknowledgments: Before going further we want to acknowledge the sponsors and the extraordinary vision of Dr. John Warner. Our sponsors include the Merrimack Valley Venture Forum, The Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council, The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, The Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, the Beyond Benign Foundation and my company, Planet-TECH Associates. Specific individuals we want to acknowledge are Susanne Ferrara of the Merrimack Valley Venture Forum and Bob Halpin of the MVEDC. Without the support of the sponsors this could not be possible, and without the vision of Dr. Warner, this never would have even been considered.

Dr. Warner has been a fountain of enthusiasm for both the environmental and the market potential for Green Chemistry and we are happy to help bring to fruition his vision for a Green Chemistry Business Summit. Dr. Warner has said many times leading up to this event, that there was no shortage of meetings that praised the potential of Green Chemistry, it was time to have a meeting who's specific objective was to help harness the business opportunities.

2. Objectives
This Summit has two specific objectives:

First) To help stimulate Green Chemistry business growth, either as small start-ups or as internal R&D operations, and

Second) To help harness Green Chemistry opportunities for business growth and workforce development here in the Merrimack Valley.

Our speakers, with a wide range of expertise in chemistry, industry, finance, academia and government will be able in their totality to cover both these objectives.

3. Agenda / Overview
Today's program looks at technical, business, and workforce development opportunities:
AM - technical perspective & workforce development
PM - business perspective.

5 . Conclusion / Innovation Valley
We hope you will appreciate this Summit and we hope that this will be the first of several forums on inventive opportunities for economic development in The Merrimack Valley. John Michitson and I have helped to organize this Summit as part of a regional economic development initiative we call Innovation Valley. As part of the Innovation Valley initiative we have held held forums on alternative energy opportunities, we have interviewed mayoral candidates on their views toward a sustainable future, and we have conducted a forum on an emerging practiced called Eco-Industrial Networking. We also write a weekly column on Innovation for The Valley Patriot and we maintain an Innovation Valley website, the URL is ivalley.org.

If you have any feedback for us regarding this event or possible ideas for future or related events, please speak to us afterwards.

Thank you again for you attendance and we look forward to an excellent program.

Todays first speaker...