Guest editorial: Canada is greener this spring

Canada is a nation known by its vast land, rich resources, and sparse populations. In spite of its small population, Canada has contributed to the advance of science and technology in the world in no small way. Some examples range from the invention of the world's first telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in a small town called Brantford in the province of Ontario, to the discovery of insulin by Frederick G. Banting and Charles Best at the University of Toronto, and to the invention of the world first “gene machine” by Kelvin Ogilvie at the Chemistry Department of McGill University. In environmental science, the 1987 Montreal Protocol is among the world's major international agreements on protecting the world environment and the Canadian industrial “Responsible Care” program pioneered by Jean M. Belanger of the Canadian Chemical Producers' Association has now been adopted by 45 other countries worldwide.

On the other hand, although green chemistry has been a rapidly growing field in the US and Europe for more than a decade, it has not had as high a profile among researchers in Canada until recently. Earlier sparse green chemistry activities in Canada were mostly associated with isolated researchers such as Murray Moo-Young at Waterloo and Ian Brindle of Brock University. In the Fall of 2000, T. H. (Bill) Chan of McGill University launched a major Canadian initiative on green chemistry (through the help of Paul Anastas) by establishing a Canadian Chapter of the Green Chemistry Institute and by setting up a nation-wide Canadian Green Chemistry Network in 2002 involving over 40 academic research scientists from across the country as well as research scientists from the National Research Council, the Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada. This group of researchers applied for a National Center of Excellence with a long list of industrial partners. This first major initiative went through several stages of the reviewing process but lost in the final stage in 2003. Nevertheless, the process furthered the goal of organizing the community. During this time, the first “Green Chemistry” graduate/undergraduate course was also established by T. H. Chan at McGill University. Conferences on green chemistry in Canada started in earnest with a Green Chemistry Workshop at Regina, Saskatchewan in May of 2003, an International Green Chemistry Symposium within the joint IUPAC/CIC (Canadian Institute of Chemistry) Conference in Ottawa in August, and a workshop on biomass utilization led by Industry Canada in late 2003. The IUPAC/CIC conference provided the first international exposure of green chemistry activities in Canada. Also in 2003, three Canada Research Chairs in Green Chemistry (Chao-Jun Li of McGill University, Philip Jessop of Queen's University, and Tomas Hudlicky of Brock University) were appointed by the Government of Canada with all three researchers coming from the United States. Furthermore, in late 2003, a Canadian Green Chemistry Forum within the CIC was established by Roland Anderson (Executive Director of the CIC) and P. Sundararajan (Vice Chair of the CIC) in consultation with T. H. Chan and C. J. Li.

With the weather warming and snow melting, green chemistry in Canada is gaining new ground this Spring. Early in the year, the Federal Government set up a policy of focusing on Green and Sustainable Science and Technologies as a future focus of Canada by pledging a $500 million budget on innovative “Sustainable Technologies” to be dispensed in two years. In April, a special issue of the Canadian Chemical News was devoted entirely to green chemistry. The Canadian Green Chemistry Medal was also established this Spring to honor individual(s) for promoting green chemistry in Canada and internationally. Later in the Spring, high-profile green chemistry researchers from Canada, the US, and Europe met in Montreal in May for two conferences, both designed to raise the profile of green chemistry in the Canadian research community. The first of the two conferences, the 18^th Canadian Symposium on Catalysis, had three half-day sessions dedicated to catalytic aspects of green chemistry, while the second, the Canada–US Joint Workshop on Innovative Chemistry in Clean Media, focused on the properties and uses of green solvents in chemical science and technologies. Only a week later, the national meeting of the Canadian Chemical Society, held in London, Ontario, included green chemistry events. By this summer, green chemistry activities have spread across most universities as well as governmental laboratories and industrial sectors in Canada. Looking toward the future, Canada is positioning to be a major player in this field in the world and Canadian researchers are actively involved in various international conferences such as the Gordon Research Conference on Green Chemistry, the 2^nd International Green Chemistry Conferences in Washington DC, the Pacifichem Chemical Congress in Hawaii, and various international collaborations.

 

Chao-Jun Li

Professor of Chemistry

Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry

McGill University, Montreal

 

Philip G. Jessop

Associate Professor of Chemistry

Canada Research Chair in Green Chemistry

Queen's University, Kingston

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