The chemical sector runs through all parts of the economy and supply chains. At the same time, it is in need of a fundamental transformation towards a sustainable resource base and a portfolio of processes and products less harmful to human and planetary health. While ‘green chemistry’ marks a rapidly growing epistemic field and industrial sector, scalable breakthroughs that would substantially transform major industrial actors and practices are not in sight. Knowledge of chemical substances situated within scientific, industrial and regulatory practices, and relating to economic, environmental and ethical value, or ‘chemical substance knowledge’ (CSK), provides an interesting avenue to transformations within the chemical sector. However, the ways in which CSK creates transformative opportunities within the chemical sector, as well as why these opportunities are often not taken, is still unclear.

This project traces CSK over time and across communities of practice to understand how CSK relates to transformations within the chemical sector and what could be the techno-epistemic drivers of transformation. Examples include the increasingly widespread use of digital tools and modelling to replace lab experiments, as well as treating novel chemical substances themselves as technologies in product development. Using an ethnographic approach and information gathered from empirical inquiries into start-up and industrial R&D practices, academic research and regulatory practices at national and international level, the project looks at (1) opportunities for industrial transformation, (2) the complexity of chemical-human-environment interactions, and (3) the role of regulation and governance as they relate to CSK.

By better understanding where and why transformation occur in the chemical sector, this project supports the goals of TransforM to promote sustainable innovation in the Munich ecosystem and predict the impact of technologic transformations for societal change.