The Business-NGO Working Group promotes the creation and adoption of safer chemicals and sustainable materials in a way that supports market transitions to a healthy economy, healthy environment, and healthy people.

As we transition from a petroleum-based economy to an economy based increasingly on the use of renewable materials, new challenges and opportunities confront us. Are biobased materials sustainable? How do we define a path to more sustainable biobased plastics? The Working Group provides a forum for leveraging the best thinking from businesses, NGOs and governments to address these challenges and harness these opportunities. Our goal is to develop consistent and robust criteria that allow product manufacturers to identify and select materials that are sustainable during their creation (growing the feedstock), production, use and end of life cycles.

Materials of interest to Working Group participants are plastics, in particular, how to define more sustainable plastics, especially bioplastics, which are made from renewable resources.