Change Chemistry’s new leader says chemical firms can still innovate amid uncertainty

This month, Jason Pearson became the executive director of Change Chemistry, an industry group that aims to speed up the commercialization of technologies to produce safe and sustainable chemicals. Pearson previously served as CEO of both the sustainable packaging group GreenBlue and the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, which encourages companies to buy more sustainable products.

Recently, cuts to decarbonization programs in the US, volatile trade policies, and rising production costs are making big chemical firms rethink investing in new technologies. In an April blog post, Change Chemistry acknowledged that it’s a challenging time to bet on new technologies but argued that sticking with carbon-intensive, polluting technologies will put companies at a disadvantage in the future. Pearson’s task is to ensure chemical firms recognize the value of pursuing sustainable technologies as government support for them fades. And he says companies still have an appetite for innovation because they know that succeeding in the long term will mean reducing the carbon footprint and toxicity of their products.

C&EN reporter Matt Blois spoke with Pearson about balancing expensive and risky long-term investment into sustainable technologies with a desire for near-term profitability. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

High energy prices are causing chemical plant closures in Europe, the US government is withdrawing support for green chemistry, and tariffs are reshaping global trade. Why are you excited to lead Change Chemistry amid all this uncertainty?

What’s exciting to me is our human capacity for innovation. The way that I understand the field of sustainability is that, as a society, we started to hit some challenges that were global, like the ambient toxification of our environment. That started to reach a level of intensity where we were starting to find a toxic burden in our bodies.

I see the work of green chemistry as kind of a response to the global and collective recognition that we've got a huge challenge and we've got to innovate to address it.

But commercializing chemical innovations can be risky and costly, and firms are being selective about which sustainability projects to pursue. How can they innovate when conditions aren’t optimal?

The fundamental drivers aren’t shifting. There still is going to be a global demand for approaches and technologies that will help us address global challenges.

Even in moments like this—moments when there might be a constraint on the level of federal investment—there's a lot of invention that's already happened that just hasn't gotten commercialized. And that's where I think the low-hanging fruit is.

That’s where communities like Change Chemistry are particularly important, because if you’ve got a company that already has developed the technology, all that it really takes is a few long-term contract commitments from customers to justify the investment, to take it off the shelf, and get it out into production. That’s a couple of key conversations.

I see that as the space Change Chemistry really works in. And it's a less expensive space than the invention space, where you're having to try out new solutions in the lab.

The innovation pipeline between the invention of a technology and full-scale commercialization has many gaps. How does Change Chemistry hope to fill those gaps?

Conversation is relatively cheap. It's much cheaper than original research. We’re creating the space for the conversations to happen.

What we’re listening for are shared challenges that might lend themselves to shared solutions. The projects that we have now evolved out of listening to what members along the supply chain were saying and then seeing if there was an opportunity to open a space for collaboration.

It could be identifying where a particular technology is needed. Being able to put enough of a collective voice behind that, it justifies the investment by a larger chemical company. Our job, absolutely, is to help to identify where the gaps are and convene the right players to address those barriers.

Adopting a new technology is risky, but not shifting toward more sustainable production can be risky as well. One recent example is Denka’s decision to close a neoprene plant that was emitting a harmful chemical subject to strict regulations. Why is it important to address those long-term risks?

The inability of companies to defossilize, the inability of companies to detoxify, will be an increasingly severe financial risk for them. The investment community has been getting more sophisticated about that. That driver of investor demand for future-proof solutions will continue. Improved chemistry is one aspect of future proofing companies that investors might want to put their capital into.

We are able to play a role in increasing the transparency of risks associated with toxicity and excessive reliance on fossil-based feedstocks and fuels. To the extent that we can elevate and make visible those risks, the more we will be able to push investment into the kinds of solutions that we would want to support.

How can companies balance the immediate need for financial restraint in lean times with the long-term need to switch to a less toxic or lower-carbon process?

The kinds of solutions that we are focused on at Change Chemistry are certainly longer-term solutions. I don't expect the companies focused on short-term returns, the investors focused on short-term returns, to be the place where we see the innovations of the future emerge. I'm not that interested in that part of the economy. I’m most interested in the companies that are going to be the companies of tomorrow, the titans of the economy, because they had an eye on 30 years out.

In March, at the 40th World Petrochemical Conference, chemical executives said they were keeping an eye on the future but argued that now isn’t the time to invest in more sustainable chemicals. How do chemical firms know when it’s the right time?

This is the question that every CEO grapples with. When do I invest? In what? And how much? The answer to those questions is going to be different for every one of those companies.

Our message at Change Chemistry isn’t that every company should be investing everything now in green chemistry. That's not the right answer for everybody. Our offer is to provide a space for companies to get the best possible intelligence in order to make that decision for themselves.

Companies have to survive and be successful to innovate. Which companies will be the winners?

There are burdens on the future that are not going away: plastic burdens, energy burdens, climate burdens, waste burdens. The companies that find a way to address them creatively and in financially efficient ways will thrive in the economy of tomorrow.

Our role as Change Chemistry is to open the space to accelerate that process. That process is going to happen, whether slowly or quickly. The winners are going to be the ones who manage to meaningfully address those major burdens that we face.