Global Chemicals Management Towards 2030 and Beyond

Cristina studied Chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, Portugal. She worked for several years in regulatory affairs for industrial and consumer goods business, where she gained experience in the EU chemicals legislation (REACH, CLP, biocides, FCMs, electronics, …) and in chemical legislation for other regions such as Latin American countries. She recently joined knoell as a Project Manager for the Chemicals and Product Safety Regulatory Affairs.

Claire Andeso has been with Dow for 7 years and currently holds the position of Product Regulatory Manager. In her role, she is the focal point for Sub-Saharan Africa on matters regarding Product Stewardship, Hazard Communication and Product Regulatory for all Dow Businesses in the region.

Geraint has more than 30 years of experience as a journalist covering environmental policy, with a particular focus on chemicals, business strategy and waste management. He started his career as a reporter for the international chemicals trade press before working at UK environmental policy journal The ENDS Report. He joined online global chemicals policy website Chemical Watch in 2008, becoming a member of the senior management team and head of journalism. At the end of last year he embarked on a freelance career.

Terry has spent more than 15 years as a reporter, editor and digital news team leader providing information for legal and regulatory professionals across a variety of topics, including health care, clean energy and climate change, occupational health and toxic substances. He joined Chemical Watch News & Insight in 2020.

Emma has 35 years of experience working as a journalist and editor specialising in the health and environmental impacts of chemicals in products - 15 of those at Chemical Watch. She left in 2021 to explore avenues for raising general awareness about chemical issues, in the broader context of sustainability. Working with a great team of consumer journalists, she is in the process of launching the Ocki website, which blends information, with community activities, events and tools - all aiming to empower people who want to live sustainably.

Kenkichi FUJII BS, MSc, PhD, RRM is a Vice President - Safety & Toxicology at the ASEAN Cosmetic Association and a senior risk assessor for chemicals, cosmetics, consumer products and foods. He took PhD from Hokkaido University, and research in RIKEN, The Institute for Genetic Medicine and then worked as an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, Hokkaido University. Since 2009, he joined to Kao R&D - Safety Science Research which is responsible for developing as well as tracking global developments in safety assessment. Currently he leads the regulatory science of global risk governance in chemicals and consumer products. He also involved in global professional activities; the International Life Science Institute Japan (ILSI) Risk Assessment Task Force, Vice President of the Society for Risk Analysis Japan, editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Risk Research, etc.

Dr. Goh Choo Ta is the Associate Professor at the Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), National University of Malaysia (UKM). He has more than 15 years of experiences in the field of chemical governance and chemical safety.

Jem is an experienced international business development manager with a background in business intelligence. He has seven years of B2B sales experience at SaaS and FTSE 100 companies as a corporate account manager, and joined the Chemical Watch team in 2019.

Cristina de Avila is Head of the Sustainable Chemicals Unit of the European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General, where she has been in charge of drafting the Commission’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, currently focusing on its implementation.

Bjorn is ECHA's second Executive Director with a mandate running from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022. He is ECHA's legal representative, in charge of the day-to-day management and all staff matters, working first at the European Chemicals Bureau at the JRC in Italy and then from 2003 in the Chemicals Unit of DG Environment in Belgium. There Bjorn became Head of Unit in 2012. He already spent one year in ECHA in 2007-2008 as Director of Operations. Bjorn was involved in the development of REACH and CLP from their very early days.

Marco is Director General of Cefic since May 2016. With a team of 160 and members adding over 550 billion Euro to the EU economy annually, Cefic is the largest industry sector representation of its kind in Brussels. Cefic unites 22 national federations, 8 associate federations and 650 members and affiliates from all over Europe. It hosts over 70 different sector groups. Virtually all large global and local chemical companies with production facilities in Europe are Cefic members.

Charlotta Fred is Deputy Director General and the Head of the Chemicals Division at the Ministry of the Environment in Sweden. The responsibility includes i.e. chemicals, waste, circular economy, radiation and nuclear safety. Charlotta has a background as PhD in Environmental Chemistry from Stockholm University and has been working within different areas of toxicology and risk assessment of chemicals and radiation, the last 12 years as manager for different groups.

Dr. Beth Dederick is a Partner in ERM’s Product Stewardship community. Beth has 15 years of environmental consulting experience, the last 10 of which have been focused on supporting the chemical, oil and gas, and manufacturing industries comply with global chemical regulations. She has hired and developed highly sought after scientific teams with deep expertise in North American chemical regulations including, but not limited to, US TSCA and OSHA HazCom and Canada’s CEPA and WHMIS. Beth has also led global compliance programs for clients with target markets in APAC, LAC, and EMEA. Beth holds a Ph.D. in environmental health policy and a Master’s Degree in environmental health sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Beth currently serves as Vice President of the Society for Chemical Hazard Communication.

Sarah Doll, National Director, Safer States. Sarah uses her unique strategic and collaboration skills to leverage collective state and local action to secure policy protections and create pressure for market transformation to reduce the threat of harmful chemicals in our daily lives. She has over twenty years of experience managing successful environmental health campaigns. Prior to Safer States, Sarah worked for the Oregon Environmental Council, the City of Portland, and on Capitol Hill.

Alejandra Acosta is an Industrial Engineer specialized in Project Management. Until 2019, she served as Director of Chemicals and Substances at the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Argentina. She is currently working as consultant for ICCA, UN agencies and governments in the fields of chemical and waste management. For ICCA, she is coordinating the regulatory cooperation project on industrial chemicals for the Latin American region, in support of the Chemical Industry Associations of the Region.

Agustín Harte has a degree in biological sciences and works as technical advisor under the Chemicals National Directorate of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Argentina.

Jenny joined ECHA in 2013 after 5 years at Cefic. Her unique expertise is also based on her career as industrial hygienist, scientific officer the Swedish competent authority & the EU COM. Since the start of the CARACAL Subgroup on Nanomaterials in 2008 she represented first Cefic and then ECHA. Thorough understanding of the policy/scientific aspects of nanomaterials were also important in her position as Chair of the Steering Group on Testing & Assessment at OECD WPMN (2014-2017). Recently Jenny has coordinated the implementation of the European Observatory for Nanomaterials.

David Azoulay is the Managing Attorney of CIEL’s Geneva office and the Director of CIEL’s Environmental Health Program. David is a French attorney who worked as an associate in environmental law in the Paris office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as well as coordinated European campaigns for Friends of the Earth Europe before joining CIEL. He coordinates CIEL's engagement relating to chemicals, health and environment, in policy spaces such as SAICM, BRS CoPs, UNEA, and OECD working parties. David is also a member of the steering committee of IPEN, the International Pollution elimination Network. Photo by Kiara Worth.

Ule Johansson is a trained police officer that started his professional career working 10 years as a policeman in Stockholm. With a master of law from Stockholm university he moved on to work as a legal adviser at his present employer, the Swedish Chemical Agency. For the past 17 years he has worked with development cooperation projects around the world. The focus area has been building state capacity for chemical management, mainly drafting relevant legislation, creating suitable institutions, training government staff etc.

Dr. Roland Weber is chemist and is working since 17 years as independent international consultant mainly for UN Organisations (UNIDO, UNEP, UNDP, and the Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention) and environmental ministries on the implementation of the Stockholm Convention (SC) for the reduction of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). Since 12 years he is member of the Stockholm Convention/UNEP BAT/BEP expert group and Dioxin Toolkit group. Since 27 years Dr. Weber is working and researching on POPs and has published more than 150 articles (www.researchgate.net/profile/Roland_Weber3).

General Manager of MBA Polymers UK Ltd with over 10 years experience in the commercialisation of new technologies capable of recycling complex mixed plastic waste streams into virgin replacement products. I was appointed President of the European Plastic Recycling Branch, EuRIC since 2019. EuRIC are a trusted interface between the industry and the European Union and serve as a platform for information, cooperation and exchange of best practices on all European recycling matters.

Martin teaches Public Law, Legal Theory and Comparative Law at the University of Applied, Sciences Darmstadt and is member of the research group “Society for Institutional Analysis - sofia”. From 2008 to 2015 he was member of the Management Board, European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). From 1984 to 1993 he was researcher at the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut e.V.) and 1990 cofounder of the “environmental law network international”.

Stéphane did a post doctoral stay at UCSD in the field of sensors. He worked for 11 years at Procter & Gamble in analytical, product design and process development department for liquid detergent development. Then he joined Cefic where he now manages Product Stewardship working on communication in the value chain and the interface between chemical product and waste legislation.

Violaine Verougstraete studied medicine and toxicology at the Catholic University of Louvain, did a DEA in Public Health and obtained her PhD in Public Health in 2005 from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). She worked as a researcher at the Industrial Toxicology and Occupational Medicine Unit of the Catholic University of Louvain for 8 years. She joined Eurometaux in May 2005 as Health and Alloys Manager. Since January 1, 2012, she is Chemicals Management Director at Eurometaux, coordinating all chemicals management activities. She attends ECHA Risk Assessment Committee meetings as a regular stakeholder. She is teaching Human Toxicology at the RUG (Universiteit Gent) and Regulatory Toxicology at the UCL (Catholic University of Louvain, Faculty of Medicine).

Joel A. Tickner, ScD, Professor of Environmental Health, Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Director of the Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production; Executive Director Change Chemistry. Joel Tickner is a Professor of Environmental Health where he also leads the Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, UMass Lowell which undertakes research, analysis, convening, and strategy to make chemistry safer for people and the planet. He is a leading expert on chemicals policy, substitution, and sustainable chemistry and has served as a trusted advisor to governments, industry, and non-profits for over 20 years.

Cheri Peele joined Toxic-Free Future in 2022 to play a leadership role in both the Retailer Report Card and public policy advocacy. She has worked for over 20 years to create and implement leadership strategies for the transition to safer chemicals. Prior to TFF, she served as program manager for the Chemical Footprint Project at Clean Production Action. She also led the development of the PBDE Chemical Action Plan for Washington state and comprehensive plans to address mercury in both Washington and Massachusetts. Cheri received her MCP with an emphasis on environmental policy from MIT and her BS in Urban Studies from Cornell University. 

Dawn has over 25 years of EHS experience. She has held various positions in the EH&S field and currently manages Intel’s global supply chain sustainability regulatory group. Her team works to ensure Intel’s supply chain is complaint to all global chemical regulatory requirements and that they are meeting their sustainability commitments which includes green chemical initiatives.

Jim manages the Regulatory Management and Chemical Compliance team at HP Inc., and is based at HP’s site in Corvallis, OR (US). This team manages chemical compliance activities and initiatives for HP’s Print businesses (home, office and its commercial & industrial printing businesses), including ink, toner and 3D agents. Jim has worked for HP for 23 years in various capacities, in a variety of areas including Operations, Procurement, New Product Development, Operations Planning, Contract Manufacturing and New Business Creation before joining his current team as a member of HP’s Sustainability organization. Prior to joining HP, Jim worked for Dow Chemical in Midland MI (US) for 16 years, also in a variety of functions and roles including Packaging, Procurement, Strategic Sourcing and Manufacturing.

Sally Gestautas is the Global Chemical Substances Program Manager for Raytheon Technologies uniting cross-functional and cross-business leadership and expertise to address global chemical substance requirements and supply chain impacts.  She manages activities to identify, track and reduce the use of hazardous materials in products and processes, and supports compliance programs for current and emerging global regulations.

As Walmart Inc.’s Senior Manager of Sustainability Strategic Initiatives, Roberto Bertin is responsible for leading sustainability efforts across the company’s Consumables, Hardlines, Electronics, Toys and Seasonal business units. Roberto works with his counterparts in the business to reduce environmental impacts and costs throughout the supply chain and drive responsible labor practices. He also leads Walmart’s Sustainable Chemistry program for the U.S supply chain within other strategic initiatives.

Clive Davies leads the Safer Choice Program in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. He is committed to advancing EPA’s chemical safety mission, and is proud to work with a talented, innovative, and dedicated staff of environmental professionals.

Andy earned his Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working at Northwestern University as a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow, Andy joined DuPont as a Research & Development chemist and served nearly 20 years developing new products, processes, and applications, as well as supporting sales, marketing, and manufacturing. In January of 2009, he assumed responsibilities for developing and executing global strategies for gaining regulatory notification and registration approvals for new substance commercialization. He is currently the Global Product Sustainability Strategy Leader at Chemours, responsible for the company’s Sustainable Offerings Corporate Responsibility Commitment Goal, which aspires to maximize the Chemours product portfolio’s contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Renee Hackenmiller-Paradis, MPH, PhD, is a Senior Chemist and Director of the Chemistry Center of Excellence at Nike, Inc. located in Beaverton, Oregon. In this role, Renee works across Nike and with external brand partners to scale more sustainable chemistry and implement strategies that reduce the impact of chemistries used in manufacturing.  Before joining Nike, Renee held roles in government, NGOs, and academia. She has a Bachelor of Science in cell and molecular biology from the University of Washington, a master’s in public health in health management and policy from PSU, and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Chicago.