Chapter 07 · Materials & footprintsLife Cycle Assessment & Product Footprinting
Chemical footprint
Definition
The total mass of chemicals of high concern (CoHCs) — carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxicants, persistent/bioaccumulative substances, endocrine disruptors and equivalents — contained in or used to make a company's products, packaging and operations, including its supply chain. The metric was operationalised by the Chemical Footprint Project (launched 2015 by the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, Clean Production Action and Pure Strategies).
References
Supports definition and framing.
Overview
What it means
The chemical footprint extends footprint thinking — carbon, water — to toxics: what gets measured gets substituted. The Chemical Footprint Project's survey benchmarks corporate chemical management (inventory, measurement, substitution, disclosure), aligned with GreenScreen hazard benchmarks and the EU REACH SVHC Candidate List. Results suggest traction: participating firms with a combined ~US$1.
2 trillion in revenue reported cutting CoHCs by over 130 million pounds in recent reporting cycles. Methodological debates mirror carbon-footprinting's — mass vs hazard-weighted mass, scope boundaries, data gaps deep in supply chains — but the metric has entered investor questionnaires and procurement scorecards.
How it is used
Companies measure and report chemical footprints to investors and customers; buyers use footprint data to drive safer-chemistry procurement; regulators watch it as a voluntary precursor to mandatory substitution tracking; NGOs benchmark sector leaders and laggards.
Why it matters
Chemical footprints make invisible toxics visible at corporate scale — the missing footprint metric for a pollution dimension that carbon accounting never touches.