Introductory Undergraduate Students

The Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), a Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) signer, will host its XII Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Students from November 6th to 7th in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

Beyond Benign Senior Program Manager Dr. Juliana Vidal will deliver the opening keynote, “Program in Green Chemistry: Catalyzing a Global Change for a Sustainable Future,” on November 6th from 9:30-10:30 a.m. 

As a member of the global GCC community, the Institute of Chemistry at UFF believes teaching students about green chemistry principles is a cornerstone of their formation as future chemists and citizens for a more sustainable world. The department is committed to advancing green chemistry through research, teaching, and promoting societal engagement.

Materials science is accelerating the transition to a sustainable future characterized by clean energy and a circular economy. As research rises to meet these global challenges, it becomes increasingly important to assess the potential impacts – economic, environmental, and social – of new innovations. This symposium will explore the integration of sustainability and societal considerations across material readiness levels: from research to development and ultimately deployment. Interdisciplinary talks will be solicited on key themes such as incorporating sustainability, economic, and social metrics into early-stage materials research; strategies for enabling circular material flows and minimizing waste; understanding the supply chain and social dimensions of materials; and case studies of the successful application of analysis to guide competitive clean and circular material development. Upon completion of this symposium, materials scientists and engineers will be equipped with a toolkit of resources and case studies to guide the evaluation and amplification of the broader impacts of their research.

About AOAC SEA

The aim of AOAC SEA is to bring together government, industry, and academia to establish standard methods of analysis. This ensures the safety and integrity of foods and other products that impact public health around the world. The vision is to be a contributor in developing confidence through consensus-based analytical solutions for food safety, food integrity, and public health across Southeast Asia countries.

Past and Upcoming Conferences

Previous annual conferences were held in Singapore (2022), Vietnam (2023), and the Philippines (2024), each enabling over 200 delegates to attend in person. The 4th Annual AOAC SEA Conference, with the theme "Advancing Food Safety and Quality: Innovation, Standards, and Collaboration," will be held at the Berkeley Hotel Pratunam in Bangkok, Thailand, on 28–29 October 2025.

The need to equip students with the tools to connect core chemistry concepts to real-world sustainability challenges has never been more urgent. That’s why green chemistry and systems thinking are now required components of ACS-approved bachelor’s degree programs.

To support this transformative shift, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute is collaborating with a national network of educators to develop powerful new teaching resources. Join David A. Laviska of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute, Michelle Brooks of the American Chemical Society, and Loyd Bastin of Widener University as they provide you an extensive library of resources ACS offers to modernize your curricula and show you how to bring green chemistry to life in your classrooms.

This ACS Webinar is co-produced with the ACS Green Chemistry Institute.

What You Will Learn

• How chemistry curricula are evolving to empower students to tackle global challenges
• Brand-new ACS green chemistry resources created specifically for educators
• Practical, first-hand strategies to implement curriculum changes that truly resonate with students

Event Details

• Thursday, August 7, 2025 @ 2-3pm ET
• Free to attend
• Slides will be available to download on the day of the webinar

NOTE: You must be an RSC member to attend this event.

Explore how sustainability and the green transition are reshaping skills in the chemical sciences. Chemistry roles now demand green skills at eight times the UK average, as highlighted in our Chemistry Future Workforce and Education Pathways report. Learn from employers about the green skills shaping the future and their priorities when recruiting. 

Panel includes:
Technology Development Lead, Croda who will talk about her experience, how much green skills are valued in chemical manufacturing and the skills that Croda values. 
R&D chemist at Johnson Matthey with  recent experience in research of fluorinated membrane degradation, focusing on PFAS analysis, monitoring and reduction.
We will also have a representative from CKGroup who works with employers seeking individuals with the right skills to fill chemical sciences roles.

About ChemCareers
Run by the Career Management team, ChemCareers is a monthly webinar series providing advice, access to experts and inspiration for your career. Our ChemCareers webinars provide insights into different sectors within chemical science and cover career-related topics such as where there are opportunities open to chemical scientists, professional development tips, how to stand out in job applications and how to manage career challenges. 

Can’t attend live? 
RSC members can catch up on our ChemCareers webinar recordings in our ChemCareers webinar library within our career and professional development hub in the Members’ area. https://members.rsc.org/site/content/Careers_Webpages/ChemCareersLibrary.aspx 

Please note:
By registering for this webinar, your information will be submitted to the webinar organiser who will use your information to communicate with you regarding this event and other services.
In order to register for this webinar, you will need to read, understand and agree to the terms set out in:

• Our privacy statement: rsc.li/privacy
• Our terms and conditions: https://www.rsc.org/help-legal/legal/terms-conditions/

For more information, please visit the RSC events website.

This free, virtual event is designed to empower undergraduate and graduate students with insights and connections to pursue meaningful and impactful careers in green chemistry and sustainability. Participants will hear from and interact directly with industry leaders and academics about career pathways, internship opportunities, and co-ops while building their professional networks.

Why Should You Attend?

• Gain valuable insight into green chemistry and sustainability career paths.
• Connect with professionals across industry, academia, government, and NGOs.
• Discover specific opportunities and resources to support your career journey.
• Network with peers and professionals committed to advancing diversity and sustainability in STEM fields.

Full program information can be found here.

At the end of the panel discussion, there will be "Career Speed Dating” breakout rooms with different professionals from academia, industries, and government organizations. When registering -please select the top 2 breakout rooms you would like to attend- see descriptions below:

Breakout Room 1: Career Paths in the Pharma Industry– If you are interested in learning more about the pharma industry, hearing from a biocatalysis expert, and potential co-ops. Internships and more, join this room.

Breakout Room 2: Career Paths in the Beauty Industry–If you are interested in the cosmetic industry and innovations in sustainable beauty, join this room.

Breakout Room 3: Career Paths in Academia– If you are interested in becoming a professor and the steps to leading a research lab as an associate professor, join this room.

Breakout Room 4: Career Paths in Tech – If you want to understand how to use your chemistry skills to advance in the tech space and potential job opportunities, join this room.

Breakout Room 5: Career Paths in Non-Profit –If you want to learn how to use your chemistry background to have a successful and impactful career in the non-profit sector, join this room.

Note: If you don't receive a confirmation email soon, check your spam folder in case it landed there. Upon registration, you will be added to the Beyond Benign email newsletter list—you can update your preferences at any time.

Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition is the premier conference for the Canadian Society for Chemistry. The mission of the chemistry conference is to be your forum; a venue where you can embrace learning, exchange knowledge, build innovative ideas, advance your career, and advance the chemistry profession.

Taking part in the Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition is an opportunity to grow, learn, connect, and celebrate all that Canadian chemistry has to offer.

This is the first year of the inaugural Green Division and there will be tons of green chemistry-related symposia and workshops throughout the conference!! Several will be led by Beyond Benign team members! Read more about them here. 

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Beyond Benign Talks

Green and Sustainable Practices in Chemistry Education (CE/GC)

Barb Morra, University of Toronto; Jonathon Moir, Beyond Benign; Nimrat Obhi, Beyond Benign; Andrew Dicks, University of Toronto; Olivia Mann-Delany, University of Toronto

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Chemistry education plays a critical role in training the next generation of chemists and engineers to consider the holistic impact of their work and actively explore ways to use more sustainable practices. This session aims to explore how educators can integrate green and sustainable chemistry practices into their classrooms, teaching laboratories, and programs. The session will be split into two parts: oral presentations followed up a workshop.

Part 1 (what are others doing with green chemistry in education?): This component will bring together instructors, teaching assistants, technical staff, and other educational stakeholders and provide them with a platform to showcase the creative ways they incorporate green and sustainable practices into their departments and curricula. Participants are encouraged to provide their unique perspective into the development, implementation, and learning outcomes of their pedagogical work, while considering how their efforts could be adopted by other instructors, particularly those with limited resources or experience with green and sustainable practices.

Part 2 (how can I add more green chemistry to my teaching?): The second part of the session will involve a workshop that provides an opportunity for educators to learn how to further adapt and implement more green and sustainable concepts into their own classrooms and laboratory using a guided inquiry approach. Workshop participants will work in small groups with facilitators to explore simple and effective approaches to updating their existing course/laboratory content and establish action plans toward implementation.

Bringing Green Chemistry into Your Lab – A Workshop for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows (GC)

Tuesday, June 17th from 8:00-11:40am in room 203 at the Rogers Center Ottawa

Jonathon Moir, Beyond Benign; Juliana Vidal, Beyond Benign; Nimrat Obhi, Beyond Benign; Barb Morra, University of Toronto; David Laviska, ACS GCI; Galen Yang, McGill University; Shauna Schechtel, Queen’s University

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Research laboratories are some of the most energy and resource intensive spaces on university and college campuses. They generate large amounts of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste (including solvents, reagents, solids, glassware, filter paper, drying agents, disposable gloves, and column waste) daily. However, this is often considered a necessary evil and an acceptable price to pay to make innovative discoveries for the betterment of humanity. Fortunately, this does not need to be the case; research in higher education can be done in a way that allows for discovery and innovation to take place without generating large amounts of waste and subjecting students, postdoctoral fellows and researchers to hazardous compounds and laboratory conditions. Importantly, there are many safer alternative reagents, solvents, and laboratory materials that can be used to reduce risk of exposure. This approach, known as green chemistry, utilizes a set of twelve practical principles for research and bench chemists to help reduce the use and generation of hazardous substances for humans and the environment.

This workshop introduces green chemistry and how its associated twelve principles can be applied at the graduate and postdoctoral level in research laboratories across universities and colleges in Canada. The workshop will explore examples of how green chemistry has been successfully introduced into research labs in different subdisciplines of chemistry and will provide an opportunity for participants to work in small groups through guided discussions to identify ways of improving their own laboratory practices and research to shift towards greener and more sustainable practices.

Register Here.

Reducing total CO₂ emissions to zero is called #CarbonNeutrality. To achieve this, industrial and energy reforms must be undertaken within the next decade. However, the specific measures are not generally known…

Join us for a special webinar with Junji Nakamura, a Research Professor at the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research, Kyushu University, to explore what the path to carbon neutrality looks like.

🗓️ When: February 6th from 6-7 p.m. EST / February 7th from 8-9 a.m. JST.

🧪 Register: This is the second installment of the webinar series, “Promoting Chemistry Applied to World Needs” presented by Beyond Benign and IUPAC CHEMRAWN. If you haven’t already registered for this free series, RSVP here! 

Are you an aspiring chemist, a passionate climate advocate, or an interested member of the public? Do you want to change the world through science? Join the IUPAC CHEMRAWN and Beyond Benign throughout 2025 to learn from experts in the field who are leading the charge to solve existential, world needs through chemistry. Speakers will orient their presentations around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), as well as the IUPAC Top 10 Emerging Technologies, to demonstrate the power that chemists hold in shaping, and preserving, the future. 

Each talk will be accompanied by  2-3 minute videos on the topic, for chemistry students in high school, university, and for the general public.

January Webinar 

“From Detoxifying Chemical Warfare Agents to Treating Nuclear Wastewater: Adventures in the Synthesis of Metal–Organic Frameworks” 

Ashlee Howarth, Concordia University

01/24/2025 | 9:00 – 10:00 AM EST

Webinar Description:

Named by IUPAC as one of the “Top 10 Emerging Technologies in Chemistry” in 2019, what can metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) really do? IUPAC CHEMRAWN Committee and Beyond Benign invite you to learn more about MOFs and join the discussion with Prof. Ashlee Howarth from Concordia University! Prof. Howarth is dedicated to using green chemistry principles and practices to design and synthesize rare-earth cluster-based MOFs which can then be applied to clean up wastewater from coal and nuclear power plants, as well as decontaminate military equipment. Other applications investigated by Ashlee also include catalysis, drug delivery, X-ray detection, and chemical sensing applications to solve our current environmental challenges. 

More About Professor Ashlee Howarth:

Ashlee J. Howarth is an Associate Professor and Concordia University Research Chair at Concordia University in Montréal. She was born and raised in London, Ontario. She obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2009, and then went on to do her PhD in inorganic materials chemistry at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Michael O. Wolf. Before joining the faculty at Concordia, she completed an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University with Joseph T. Hupp and Omar K. Farha. At Concordia, the Howarth group is focused on the design and synthesis of rare-earth cluster-based metal–organic frameworks targeting applications in pollution remediation, catalysis, drug delivery, X-ray detection, and chemical sensing. Ashlee is also the contact point for the Green Chemistry Commitment at Concordia University.

The GC&E Conference, hosted by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute®, is the premier global event for green chemistry and engineering. As the first and longest-running conference on this topic, GC&E attracts scientists, educators, industry professionals, and advocates to explore advancements, share best practices, inspire innovation, and build community dedicated to sustainable solutions.

Each year, the conference evolves, incorporating new ideas while maintaining its 28-year legacy. Its vision is for green and sustainable chemistry to be integral to all scientific endeavors, providing solutions that balance human well-being with planetary health. For this reason, the 2025 conference theme will be Good Health and Well-Being Through Sustainable Chemistry to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.

GC&E 2025 will showcase innovative research and cross-cutting topics in green and sustainable chemistry and engineering, with an emphasis on symposia that highlight our theme “Good Health and Well-Being”, such as medical breakthroughs, new technologies, and efforts to eliminate or reduce hazardous chemical pollution promoting longer and healthier lives.

Beyond Benign Talks and Social Events

“Design and development of an on-demand introductory course to infuse green chemistry in the undergraduate curriculum”

Dr. Deborah Bromfield Lee, Professor of Chemistry, Florida Southern College

“Case study on sustainable practices in metal plating for Green Chemistry education”

Dr. Hun Bok Jung, Assistant Professor Department of Physical Sciences, Kingsborough Community College

“An online course for the chemistry education community: empowering educators to bring environmental justice discussions into the classroom”

Dr. Monica Soma Hensley, Content Manager, Beyond Benign

““Soy” What? We’ve “bean” incorporating soybean-based industrial innovations into the chemistry curriculum”

Dr. Jane Wissinger, Professor Emerita, Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota

"Institutional Change for a Sustainable Future: Beyond Benign and the Green Chemistry Commitment"

Dr. Juliana Vidal, Dr. Amy Cannon,  Dr. Omar Villanueva, and Dr. Natalie O’Neil

"Mechanochemistry and Green Chemistry: A Connection Between Education, Research, and Innovation for a Healthier Planet"

Juliana Vidal, Beyond Benign; James Batteas, Texas A&M University; Francesca Kerton, Memorial University; Isaiah Speight, William & Mary

"Comprehensive survey on the implications of green chemistry and toxicology concepts in chemistry education: An industry and academic perspective"

Nesta Bortey-Sam, University of Pittsburgh

"Development of a green chemistry and toxicology professional development certificate course"

Douglas Raynie, South Dakota State University

"Green Chemistry Resources in the Classroom"

Thomas P. Umile, Villanova University; Jennifer A. Tripp, University of San Francisco; Monica Soma Hensley, Beyond Benign; Amy S. Cannon, Beyond Benign; David Laviska, Green Chemistry Institute, American Chemical Society

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Green Chemistry Commitment: Catalysts for Change Reception

Come mix and mingle with Beyond Benign, MilliporeSigma (the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), and the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute at 6 PM on Sunday, June 22nd, 2025 at Sienna Mercato's rooftop bar, il Tetto.

Embrace the unique opportunity to connect with current leaders in the field of green chemistry and find resources to help lead a sustainable future.
Current green chemistry leaders joining this event include members of industry, as well as faculty members who are signers of Beyond Benign's Green Chemistry Commitment.

Enjoy free food and drinks and unique networking opportunities-- all against the beautiful Pittsburgh skyline at a scenic, award-winning venue.

Who: Chemistry Faculty, Undergraduate and Graduate Students
What: A chance to connect with likeminded young chemistry leaders and influencers in the green chemistry space.
When: Sunday, June 22nd at 6:00 PM EST
Where: il Tetto at Sienna Mercato, 942 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Catalyzing Change in Chemistry Education Faculty Luncheon

Join Beyond Benign, MilliporeSigma (the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), and the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) for a free, catered luncheon on June 24th, 2025 at the ACS Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference.

Who: Chemistry faculty, administrators, and student leaders interested in generating departmental support for green chemistry implementation.

What: A lunch panel of faculty members who are leading a systemic change in education through the Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) at their institutions.

Panel moderators: Dr. Amy Cannon (Executive Director & Co-Founder of Beyond Benign) and Jeffrey Whitford Vice President of Sustainability & Social Business Innovation at MilliporeSigma, will bring their own expertise as green chemistry leaders.

Where: Sterlings 1, 2, & 3

When: Tuesday, June 24th, 2025 at 12:30 PM EDT
The GCC program is a collaborative voice created to unite the higher education chemistry community towards green chemistry principles and practices and further its size, reach, and diversity. Join us to learn all the benefits that the students, faculty, and staff in your department can gain access to when they join the GCC.

Register on the GC&E Website