Last year was certainly an eventful year! The political and economic landscape underwent and continues to undergo shifts of tectonic scope. The European Union continued to evolve REACH legislation, and California unrolled the first US State Green Chemistry laws. While demand for chemists and chemical engineers to tackle bigger and more complex problems in a more environmentally conscious and cost effective way increased, chemical industry was riddled with layoffs, closings and downsizing. Interestingly, in such a stressed environment, sustainability and green chemistry initiatives seem to not only be surviving budgetary realignments, but actually thriving. The “coming of age” of green chemistry as an economic and business imperative integrated throughout research, development and manufacturing, rather than a peripheral “non-essential” activity has been realized across countless industry labs and offices. Through the complexity of the year, the field of Green Chemistry continued to grow and build.
The first volume of Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews has been published. As we enter the second publication year, we find the rate of manuscript submissions increasing steadily. Interest from an extremely diverse readership continues to spread. The manuscripts from the research, business and education communities documenting innovations across a wide spectrum of applications and technologies never cease to impress and amaze me.
As the future unfolds, and the green chemistry community grows, it is difficult to not be optimistic. As the relationship between the molecular sciences and the general public is examined from a wide variety of perspectives-green chemistry emerges as a proactive vision. It is seen as a mechanism to address hazards in the environment, an opportunity to create workforce development in economically struggling communities, and a pathway to science literacy in classrooms across the globe. There is much work to do, but from the vantage point of Editor of this journal, our community has risen to the occasion and accepted the tasks in front of them.