For over two decades, green chemistry and green engineering have been designing, discovering, inventing, and implementing new innovations that make our material world more sustainable. In order to move this science and technology to large scale with the urgency required to transform our society, the tools of sustainable chemistry will be needed. The Periodic Table of the Elements of Green and Sustainable Chemistry uses the metaphor of Mendeleev’s 150 year-old framework to illustrate the varied and diverse approaches, conceptual constructs, tools, metrics, and policies that will be needed to move rapidly toward a sustainable civilization. Just as the original Periodic Table of the Elements has added many new elements, so it is true of this incarnation where new “elements” will be discovered along this important and necessary journey.
