Lessons in 'green chemistry': Why safer materials for products like batteries are a competitive advantage

Every product, device, building and medicine that we touch and use starts with materials. Materials determine what is possible, and chemistry determines what materials are possible. Chemistry is the science of materials and of innovation at the molecular level. It is how we discover entirely new capabilities, not simply improve existing products.

That is why green chemistry – chemistry that focuses on designing products and processes that minimize or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances – matters.

When we redesign materials to be safer, cheaper and more efficient from the beginning, we open the door to a new degree of molecular control and performance. We do not merely switch components to make existing products less hazardous. We revolutionize what products can do, how industries scale and how economies compete.

This is not a niche sustainability agenda. It is a materials strategy for competitive advantage.

Batteries offer a powerful case in point.

At the heart of the remarkable progress in batteries over recent years has been innovation in chemistry. New battery chemistries have enabled electric vehicles (EV) and battery storage to move from niche technologies to mass-market solutions by extending driving range, reducing charging time, improving safety and lowering costs. Replacing nickel and cobalt with iron and phosphate, for example, helped reduce costs, improve safety and ease dependence on scarce minerals. And the next generation of batteries will rely even less on critical materials, because through green chemistry principles we can discover ways to use more abundant alternatives.

Battery prices have fallen 93% in real terms since 2010, according to BloombergNEF. Charging, once one of the greatest obstacles to EV adoption, has improved dramatically. A decade ago, charging a car in an hour was considered fast. Today, some battery designs can support hundreds of kilometers of range in five to ten minutes. Batteries that use sodium – one of the Earth’s most abundant elements – have become a reality that has the potential to profoundly change the playing field and enable broad electrification for industrial demand.

The rise of batteries is not yet a perfect green-chemistry story. Lithium mining, for example, remains a serious challenge, and battery manufacturing remains energy- and materials-intensive. But it shows what better chemical design can do. By replacing key components and relying on greener chemistry, battery makers reduced costs, improved safety and lowered exposure to supply-chain chokepoints tied to scarce and geopolitically sensitive minerals.

That is green chemistry’s central promise: industrial growth that is cheaper, safer and more reliable from the start. Instead of creating hazards and managing the damage later, it tackles harm at the source. Instead of depending on rare materials from distant sources, it reinvents processes and finds solutions in localized production with what’s already abundant. Safer products mean lower healthcare burdens, healthier families and healthier communities. Local production means less vulnerability to supply-chain chokepoints.

This matters far beyond batteries.

In fuels, a simplified chemical pathway is producing cost-efficient sustainable aviation fuel from captured CO2, with a 90% reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions. In medicine, greener catalytic processes are helping manufacturers make complex treatments with less waste and smaller production footprints. In consumer products, companies are moving away from forever chemicals and microplastics toward compostable packaging and bio-based materials. In electronics, safer chemistry standards are pushing toxic substances such as lead and harmful flame retardants out of devices and global supply chains. In infrastructure, new asphalt designs could make roads more durable, self-repairing and less carbon-intensive, reducing repair costs and disruption over time.

These are early signals of a broad industrial transition toward safer and higher-performing materials with major implications for people as well as industry. Better materials can reduce waste, cut exposure to harmful chemicals and lower the long-term costs that poorly designed products can impose on workers, consumers, healthcare systems and the environment.

Performance and well-being do not have to be trade-offs. They can be the outcomes of better design.

This business case is beginning to register. A Morning Consult survey for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation found that 71% of U.S. R&D and technology leaders would invest in green chemistry for competitive advantage. Yet only 27% say it is part of their current R&D strategy. The gap is at the execution level. Companies still cite upfront costs, constrained budgets and legacy infrastructure as barriers.

That is precisely why we need more leadership, now.

Those costs should be understood as investments. It makes little economic sense to keep producing materials and products that create harm, invite regulation, expose companies to litigation and impose costs on families, communities and healthcare systems. We know the consequences of flawed design. Yet too often we tolerate them as if they were unavoidable. They are not.

Scaling this shift will require more than individual corporate pilots – it will take investment, procurement standards, policy support and collaboration across value chains. The next era of industrial leadership will be shaped not only by who builds faster, but who builds better at the molecular level. Innovation in chemistry is what brought us to this moment. Nearly every major advance in modern materials – from batteries to medicines to semiconductors – began with chemistry. If we want cleaner industries, stronger supply chains and more competitive economies, we need more leaps in discovery and invention of new materials. We need to invest more in chemistry itself.