Foreword Polymers in liquid formulations (PLFs) play a vital role in our lives – from improving food productivity to treating wastewater – but they also have significant environmental impacts. Every year, around 36 million tonnes of these materials are made from fossil sources – enough to fill Wembley Stadium 32 times over. While plastics have risen high on the sustainability agenda, other polymers such as PLFs have been neglected. We have an opportunity to take decisive action. At the Royal
Society of Chemistry (RSC), we are proud to be working with some of the leading chemistry-using companies in the world to put the issue of PLFs on the map. Our Sustainable PLFs Task Force has set an overarching ambition for industry: transition to a sustainable PLFs market by 2040. Achieving this will require a concerted, coordinated effort across the whole innovation ecosystem – from building the fundamental knowledge base, to developing networks for collaboration, investing in research and innovation, and enacting effective policies and regulation. We cannot afford to wait. PLFs have a direct impact on the planetary boundaries of climate change and novel entities, both of which have already breached safe limits. The UK has the potential to be a world leader in sustainable PLFs, but the scale of the challenge is vast. Market forces alone are unlikely to deliver change at the pace and scale required. Collaboration will be required across the value chain and interventions will need to be designed and evaluated from a lifecycle perspective. Our action plan sets out key actions for the RSC, industry, academia and policymakers to kick-start the transition. And our roadmap for sustainable PLFs sets out two critical missions and nine priorities to mobilise focused collaboration, investment and innovation across the system. We are calling for industry, academia and policymakers to work with us to catalyse the transition to a world in which we enjoy the benefits of PLFs while protecting the health of people and the planet.
Professor Gillian Reid FRSC FRSE CChem President, Royal Society of Chemistry
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