Product Sustainability Summit USA 2022

Nhat Nguyen is a US licensed attorney with over 9 years of global regulatory compliance. He currently serves as the Chief Analyst for Enhesa Product Intelligence and leads a new department which provides further insights and solutions to Enhesa Product Intelligence's customers on regulatory compliance, technology and scientific data regarding chemical and chemical products. 

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.

Lori is working as Operational Lead at Scivera an innovative software company that helps companies understand and select safer chemistries for products. She is a public health professional who has worked in the fields of sustainable chemistry, toxicology, and consumer products. She spent 23 years as the Chief Science Officer of NSF International, a public health and safety organization that develops standards and certification programs.

Dan oversees the RBA’s environmental sustainability, circular materials, and chemical management programs. For each, he engages with companies, NGOs, and stakeholders throughout the electronics industry to collaborate on solving the greatest environmental, social, and labor challenges in global supply chains. Dan develops tools and creates programing that help all tiers of supply chains improve their capacity and ability to meet increasingly challenging demands in carbon, energy, water, and waste management systems.

Molly Blessing leads sustainability initiatives for the Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA), a trade association consisting of approximately 240 member companies across the supply chain who make and sell over $180 billion of trusted and familiar products that help consumers and workers clean, protect, maintain, and disinfect homes and commercial environments. Molly has previously worked at Henkel Adhesive Technologies and Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.  She is also a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Green Chemistry Program intern.  Molly has a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut, a Master of International Affairs with a concentration in Energy and Environment from Columbia University, and an M.S. in Product Stewardship from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Elisabeth Luther is Principal of Sustainability and Knowledge Transfer at Yordas. She is an environmental regulatory specialist with more than a decade of experience in sustainable project delivery and scientific communication. Elisabeth oversees the delivery of sustainability and stakeholder engagement projects, specifically in relation to life cycle assessment, ecolabels and environmental communication. She holds a Master of Environment from Universite de Sherbrooke and a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from McGill University.

Kate Sellers leads multidisciplinary problem-solving teams that help ERM clients to meet their business goals. Her work ranges from assisting clients in building and auditing global product stewardship programs to fulfilling specific regulatory requirements and supporting product sustainability programs.

A partner in ERM’s Product Stewardship community, with over 25 years of supply chain consulting experience. He has designed and implemented supply chain solutions for Fortune 100 companies, focusing on the intersection of operations, product stewardship and technology, leading supply chain and sourcing projects in the technology, manufacturing, mining, and chemical industries. Ed ensures clients supply chains are sustainable and resilient, focusing on the challenges of international and US regulations. He has led engagements with clients in: Australia, China, Europe, India, Brazil and Argentina. Ed is a Certified in Inventory and Production Management (CPIM) by the Supply Chain Council.

After graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from the University of Michigan, Stephen began work with BASF Corporation as a Research Technician in 2011. Initial research focused on synthesizing dispersions for printing inks and later transitioned as an Associate Scientist designing dispersions for Pressure Sensitive Adhesive applications. In 2018 he transitioned into Technical Service for Coater Ready PSA dispersions and in 2020 over to CASE Urethane raw materials. Most recently, Stephen has joined the Product Stewardship and Regulatory Affairs team as a Senior Product Steward supporting the Chemical Monomers division of BASF.

Tanya Melendez manages all regulatory affairs and EHS compliance activities at PHOENIX. She brings over eight years of experience in food and cosmetic packaging, plastics, flavors, and consumer goods to her role, as well as a background in health and wellness. One of Tanya’s primary areas of focus is in researching and ensuring complete lifecycle regulatory compliance from product design through manufacture. She is passionate about working with suppliers, customers, and other partners to establish and implement environmentally compliant, sustainable business practices as they relate to product development, manufacturing operations, and end of life.

Rick Palandri heads Phoenix’s Sustainability Committee and is responsible for setting strategy, managing sustainability related projects, and reporting. He has a decade’s experience in plastics packaging working across multiple engineering roles. Rick works primarily in new product development with a focus on sustainability and design of injection molded parts. He is driven by the constant new challenges that are inherent to working in plastics packaging in 2022.

When I joined the Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation Institute in 2011, I knew that I was becoming part of an important movement. What I could not have envisioned was just how far-reaching our scope of work would become and how safer chemistry would become central to the circular economy. This evolution highlighted a clear and specific need to create better, more accessible material health knowledge for designers and manufacturers across all industries. In 2017 our team began working on a new initiative called MaterialWise, to expand access to verified chemical hazard information as an accelerator for positive design. In 2018 we spun-out of C2CPII and engaged in co-design and proof-of-concept pilot alongside partners from Target, Google, Nike, Levis, Method, Steelcase, Environmental Defense Fund, C&A Foundation, ZDHC, and more.

Jeff Morgheim is the Global Sustainability Director having joined Huntsman in February 2021. In this capacity, he advises executive management and the Board on sustainability-related topics and oversees the disclosure of performance, including Huntsman’s sustainability report. Prior to joining Huntsman, Jeff worked in the global oil and gas industry, primarily with BP, in a variety of strategic and financial planning and business development roles. He also served twice as BP’s Global Director for Climate Change. Jeff was the first person to trade carbon dioxide as part of a groundbreaking emissions trading system. He has dual degrees in both Economics and Russian Language from The Johns Hopkins University.

Mike has spent over 29 years working in the flame retardant industry including spells as VP of Marketing, Technology, and Sales at ICL, and the business that is now Lanxess, responsible for phosphorus based flame retardants and fire resistant products and also for brominated FRs.  For many of these years Mike has contributed to discussions internally, and more broadly, concerning regulating, or limiting, the use of halogenated flame retardants and issues affecting choosing more sustainable alternatives, be they halogenated or other.

Kelly Gilroy, VP Sustainable & Natural Products is an experienced business leader who delivers sustainable growth by prioritizing a collaboration between people and the plant. Driven by continuous improvement and a commitment to learning, Kelly currently leads the development and commercialization of sustainable and natural ingredients across Univar Solutions. Kelly supports customers on their sustainability journeys and works closely with the Univar Solutions global supplier base to identify markets and opportunities to launch innovative ingredients that meet evolving market, regulatory and societal expectations. She joined Univar Solutions in 2014 and has held positions of increasing responsibility, most recently, as VP Global Beauty and Personal Care. Prior to working at Univar Solutions, Gilroy she held marketing and sales leadership roles at The Lubrizol Corporation and Nalco, an Ecolab Company. Kelly holds a BS, Accountancy from the University of Illinois and is a CPA.

After completing a BA in Russian Studies, Greg has extensive experience in international business development and training, and speaks multiple languages including French, German, Russian and Serbo-Croatian. After 5 years of international business development in patent information services, he joins Chemical Watch as International Business Development Manager.

David is the Science Director of the American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute®.  In this role he works to catalyze and enable the implementation of green chemistry and engineering throughout the global chemistry enterprise.

Ruxandra defends industry interests towards legal and regulatory challenges to EU market access. Her practice is focused on EU regulatory law and litigation with a strong emphasis on product, environmental and sustainability regulations, across a large number of sectors ranging from raw materials (chemicals, minerals) to products such as electronics, consumer apparel, medical devices, cosmetics, food and food contact materials. Ruxandra also advises on supply-chain related matters, in particular environmental and regulatory. Although rules and regulations apply per jurisdiction, companies operate globally – her expertise and advice assist companies address global challenges and risks. Ruxandra’s litigation experience is extensive (she defended close to 100 actions before the European Court of Justice and before the Board of Appeal of ECHA), and she has formed and continues to act as a trusted advisor to more than 30 industry groups.

Rachel leads projects to develop criteria for GEC’s EPEAT ecolabel, the premiere global ecolabel for the IT sector. Her current focus is a new set of criteria promoting the reduction of chemicals of concern that will apply to all EPEAT product categories. Dedicated to creating a world where only sustainable technology is bought and sold, she researches new technology areas, analyzes the impacts of products, and develops new resources that support the procurement of sustainable electronic products and services.

Strategic advisor to international businesses, organizations, executives and Boards, providing leadership in strategy, organizational transformation and sustainability. Effective collaborator and partnerships builder who brings empathy and a growth mindset to engaging with complex challenges. Success in leading high-impact projects and cross-functional teams, in areas such as the circular economy and digitalization.

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.

Kathleen O’Keefe is the global Product Sustainability Senior Director for The Chemours Company. Kathy has held product stewardship, regulatory compliance, and sustainability roles for a majority of her thirty-one-year career. Kathy’s leadership and experience has helped enable Chemours to develop sustainable practices and offerings through collaborations with partners, alliances, and key stakeholders.

As Vice President of ACC’s Plastics Division, Joshua leads public policy and advocacy initiatives rooted in sustainability and circularity to help advance bold goals and commitments on behalf of more than 40 of America’s leading companies spanning the entire plastics value chain—from plastics makers to plastic recyclers.

Lynn L. Bergeson has earned an international reputation for her deep and expansive understanding of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the European Union Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation, the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), and especially how these regulatory programs pertain to nanotechnology, industrial biotechnology, synthetic biology, and other emerging transformative technologies. She counsels clients on a wide range of issues pertaining to product stewardship; chemical hazard, exposure, and risk assessment; risk communication; minimizing legal liability; and product lifecycle strategy.

Richard E. Engler, Ph.D. is Director of Chemistry with Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. and The Acta Group.  Dr. Engler is a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is one of the most widely recognized experts in the field of green chemistry, having served as senior staff scientist in EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) and leader of EPA's Green Chemistry Programme. 

Engineer in ERM’s Product Stewardship team based in Austin, TX. Rick has 8 years of Product Sustainability experience, specializing in: Packaging, Recycling, the Circular Economy, and Lifecycle Assessments. He has designed, developed, and delivered packaging and recycling solutions for Fortune 100 companies. His work has focused on the intersection of engineering, sustainability, product stewardship, and technology. Rick recently joined ERM from Loop, the world’s largest Reusable products platform, where he was the VP of R&D.

Results-driven sustainability design professional who strongly believes that businesses can/should address some of the most pressing societal and environmental challenges we face today. Passionate about helping organizations embed sustainability in their strategy, brands, operations, cultures and communications. Shruti has over 18 years of global sustainability design experience in corporate and social enterprise sectors across consumer goods, healthcare, technology and appliances in both developed and emerging markets. She is currently working with Takeda pharmaceuticals as a packaging design and sustainability lead. She is also the chair of sustainability section at IDSA (Industrial designers society of America).

Aysu Katun is the VP of Sustainability at Greif, a global industrial packaging company, where she leads the development and execution of the company’s sustainability strategy, targets and initiatives. Her work focuses on a range of sustainability issues including the circular economy, climate change, sustainable innovation, fair labor and business practices and sustainable procurement. Under her leadership, Greif has delivered top tier sustainability performance which has been recognized by multiple ratings organizations. Prior to joining Greif, Aysu worked at Hewlett Packard.

Doug Gatlin is CEO of Green Seal, a global non-profit organization with a mission to accelerate the adoption of safer, more sustainable products. For most of his career, Doug has developed and led programs that leverage the power of markets to solve human health and environmental challenges.  Doug has been part of the environmental labeling movement almost since its inception.  Working at US EPA in the late-90s and early 2000s, Doug was one of the founding members of the ENERGY STAR team.  From 2006-2018 Doug worked at the US Green Building Council (USGBC), where he led standards development for LEED and then later ran the Green Building Certification and the Professional Credentialing departments.  Doug holds a B.S. in Political Science from Duke University and an M.S. in Energy and Environmental Policy from Georgetown University.

Gabriel Thoumi, CFA, FRM, Certified Ecologist, CEO and Founder, Responsible Alpha is a qualified investment research manager with over 14 years’ experience as an award-winning ESG research manager (2014, 2015, 2020 & 2021). He has led the production of plastics dashboards for Responsible Alpha. He has previously covered the chemicals sector for Calvert Investments and Planet Tracker. Currently, he is a member of various Fortune 500 and NGO boards and scientific and financial technical committees including the S&P Sustainable Finance Scientific Council. He has published over 70 ESG Integration™ investment reports, edited two finance textbooks on conserving our land and ocean resources, and hundreds of news articles on ESG integration™. In his career, he has successfully led ESG Integration™ capital market innovations in ETFs, public finance, and green bonds funds; large and mid-cap U.S., global, and emerging markets funds management; corporate engagement; and carbon markets.

Alison Keane is an environmental attorney with 20 years’ experience in both the private and governmental sectors. She is currently the President and CEO of the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA), the association representing U.S. converters of film, foil, paper and other materials into packages for food, medical device and industrial products.