The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a private philanthropic organisation based in California, is to spend nearly $100 million (£73 million) on a new green chemistry initiative. The programme is the first chemistry-focused investment in the foundation’s history, and will be headed up by green chemistry pioneer Paul Anastas.
The seven-year, $93.4 million venture is to focus on developing methods to control and monitor intermolecular interactions in complex mixtures, and new approaches for toxicological assessment including a planned open-access toxicology platform. The initiative will be designed to align with the ‘12 principles of green chemistry’ outlined by Anastas and his colleague John Warner in 1998.
‘By openly sharing data and results, and fostering collaborations that transcend traditional boundaries, the foundation aims to play a leading role in green chemistry basic research, inspire further advancements in this critical field, and empower the implementation of these advances for the benefit of society,’ Anastas stated. He will work full time on the Green Chemistry Initiative at Moore but will also maintain his affiliation with Yale University, where he runs a lab focused on the practice of chemistry for the environment.
Anastas, sometimes referred to as the ‘father of green chemistry’, began his career at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before taking on roles at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and then leading the Green Chemistry Institute, a non-for-profit that he co-founded. He joined Yale in 2007 and then headed the EPA’s Office for Research and Development before returning to his position as the director of Yale’s Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering in 2012.
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