Nonprofit chemical hazard data company ChemFORWARD is introducing the next chapter in its mission to ensure dependable ingredients for the future. With the SAFER program, the enterprise co-designed a safety verification process and trade name labeling operation for the B2B marketplace, created in collaboration with suppliers and retailers over the past two years. The initiative was inspired by these partners requesting environmental  safety claims and trust building in their own supply chain from ChemFORWARD. “In the absence of regulation, data, and third-party certifications to back up claims of safety, what we need is a nonprofit solution that defines safer clearly and works with suppliers to assess ingredients and materials before we use them in products intended to be safer,” comments Mia Davis, Vice President of Sustainability and Impact for Credo Beauty. 

Using an internationally compliant database of chemical hazard assessments, the company hopes to offer faster and more affordable safety evaluations of trade name materials. For while imposing restrictions on or banning certain materials presents one aspect of the equation, ensuring their safety is a more complicated matter. “Just knowing a chemical is a known carcinogen or that it causes skin sensitization can be enough to rule it out as a good candidate for product applications. To be sure it is inherently benign for its intended use means all human and environmental impacts should be classified. A lack of hazard data does not mean a chemical is inherently benign,” comments Lauren Heine PhD, Director of Science at ChemFORWARD. With the global cosmetics market set to reach $415.29 billion by 2028, the imperative to ensure safe products is stronger than ever. Furthermore, ChemFORWARD represents an unbiased authority driven by facts, not financial gain. 

Sustainable B2B marketplace Novi has partnered with the company on joint retail partnerships including Sephora, Credo, and Target in order to push forward safety regulations and policies on a consumer-facing level. They are currently hoping to find alternatives to UV filters, preservative systems, cyclic silicones, and ethanolamines using this new innovation. “With our technology, suppliers can be pre-screened for SAFER qualifications and brands and formulators can filter for SAFER ingredients when sourcing alternatives. This is a win for suppliers, for brands, and for transparency that is enabled by technology—that’s the intersectionality we seek to scale sustainable sourcing,” says Kimberly Shenk, advisory board member for ChemFORWARD and CEO of Novi. Sephora’s Principal of Product Sustainability, Carley Klekas, adds: “We believe this effort will help uncover new safer alternatives, encourage suppliers to proactively fund the assessment of materials with limited or no safety data, and reward manufactures of safer alternatives with preferred purchasing through supplier marketplaces.” 

Simply put, consumer demand has pushed brands and, therefore, their suppliers to make substantial changes in product safety verification. With more company owners inquiring about a financially feasible way to offer this to their customer audience, ChemFORWARD is filling the market gap thanks to a comprehensive and conscientious solution. “Data is power because it provides transparency to enable better decision making. And in this industry, technology is what will allow the flow of information to happen between material suppliers and consumer brands,” Shenk adds. “It will give brands the transparency they need to make better sourcing decisions.”