Guiding Principles of Responsible Chemistry

Scientific organisations around the world serving local, national, regional, and global membership bases have developed guidelines, codes of conduct, pledges, and comparable frameworks to encourage ethical behaviour among individual scientists, groups, and organisations. By integrating these ethical guidelines into their professional endeavours and everyday lives, chemists can contribute significantly to the advancement of science and the betterment of society. Following are examples of guidelines and codes for ethical conduct that cover specific scientific topics or societal disciplines. 

The International Science Council has developed standards for organisations wishing to develop guidelines or codes of conduct for ethics and responsibility in science¹ that are intended for its member national societies and scientific unions. EuChemS has published recommendations from its Working Party on Ethics in Chemistry,² and the American Chemical Society³ has established codes of conduct for its members. The Interacademy Partnership has published the book Doing Global Science—A Guide to Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise,⁴ which is available as a PDF or in print.  

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals⁵ set forth ethical, multidisciplinary strategies that governments, civil society, the private sector, and academia should employ to address the most-pressing global challenges. The set of 17 interconnected goals, adopted in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for all by the year 2030.⁵ The Sustainable Development Goals are aimed at organisations around the world, including not only scientific societies and unions, but also governments and nongovernmental organisations focused on social, environmental, and economic goals.  

As described further in the Guiding Future Action section of the Responsible Innovation Guiding Principle, Green Chemistry, Sustainable Chemistry, and Circular Chemistry are complementary approaches to orient chemistry toward environmental responsibility. Green chemistry can be defined as the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances.^6-9 The Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry establish ethical guidelines for chemists to follow in order to make chemical production more sustainable, efficient, and less harmful to human health and the environment.⁶  Along with the Criteria for Sustainable Chemistry¹⁰and the Principles of Circular Chemistry,¹¹ green chemistry approaches should be considered from the beginning in the design and implementation of chemical reactions, processes, and the creation of new products.  

Safety and security in the chemical and related professions have received close attention in recent decades, partly in response to accidents and incidents in laboratories and during industrial production and transportation that exposed the public to hazardous chemicals and conditions. In response, organisations such as the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have developed chemical safety and security guidelines. The ACS’s RAMP program,¹² which stands for Recognize, Assess, Minimize, and Prepare, was developed to promote safety in laboratory environments for students and educators. The OPCW’s Hague Ethical Guidelines¹³ focus on the proper use, storage, handling, and disposal of chemicals with dual uses that, left uncontrolled, could be used as weapons. 

Ethical conduct across the entire chemistry community is essential to earning and maintaining public trust in science. For example, Beyond Benign is an initiative to make green chemistry an integral part of chemistry education by teaching students to recognise and develop sustainable methods and processes.¹⁴  

Ethical, honest, and accurate reporting of scientific data, theories, and results is another way to build public appreciation for chemistry and increase understanding of the scientific process. As an example, IUPAC is an active participant in the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) Principles for the use and reporting of data, digital entities, and metadata.¹⁵ 

Responsible chemistry depends upon a thorough understanding of the entire lifecycle of a chemical.  Systems thinking, as it applies to chemistry, encourages practitioners to look at complex systems and consider their interconnectedness and interdependencies and helps the public recognise the many issues involved in safe and responsible chemical practice.^16-18