Environmental Scoring for Chemical Ingredients
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for evaluating the environmental impact of ingredients in personal care products are inadequate, as they often rely on functional use rather than intrinsic environmental characteristics, and fail to consider the potential environmental effects of chemical components across different regions and applications.
Innovation Solution
A method for assigning an environmental score to ingredients based on persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity, independent of their functional use, which guides the selection of more environmentally friendly alternatives and tracks environmental performance across product formulations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If ingredients are classified based on their functional use in products, then the classification can be adapted to different applications, but the environmental assessment becomes inaccurate because the same chemical may have different environmental impacts depending on its function rather than its intrinsic properties
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the conventional approach by classifying ingredients based on their intrinsic environmental properties rather than their functional use. This inversion allows the same chemical substance to receive a consistent environmental classification regardless of how it is used in different products, thereby improving measurement precision while maintaining adaptability through universal application of the classification criteria.
2Device complexity
If a single environmental score is assigned to each chemical component, then the scoring simplifies the assessment process, but it fails to account for the component's specific function and exposure patterns in different product applications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the environmental scoring from the functional context, creating a standalone intrinsic environmental property assessment. By separating the scoring mechanism from functional considerations, the system maintains simplicity while the loss of functional information is compensated by providing functional context separately in product formulation guidelines, allowing formulators to match scored ingredients with appropriate applications.
3Reliability
If environmental grading is based on supplier history and current procedures, then the system can evaluate supplier performance, but it does not provide sufficient guidance for formulators to select environmentally preferred ingredients across multiple applications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal environmental classification system that can be applied across all product types and applications. The intrinsic environmental property-based classification provides reliable grading while the universal nature of the criteria makes it easy to operate, as formulators can use the same classification framework to evaluate ingredients for any product category without needing application-specific assessment protocols.
4Device complexity
If the environmental assessment considers only toxicity, then the evaluation is simple and focused, but it ignores other environmentally relevant data such as persistence and bioaccumulation that are readily available for many chemical components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple environmental assessment parameters including toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation into a unified intrinsic environmental property classification system. This combination maintains evaluation simplicity while capturing comprehensive environmental data, preventing loss of any single parameter's contribution to the overall environmental assessment.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are methods for developing a product having a relatively benign environmental impact. The methods evaluate the environmental hazard of various chemical components in formulated products and identify improvements in environmental safety based on those evaluations. Environmental criteria are in part developed based on three factors including; persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity. One method includes obtaining a preliminary formula for a product, wherein the preliminary formula includes a plurality of chemical components, identifying at least one different chemical component that is capable of being substituted for the chemical component in the preliminary formulation and determining an environmental performance score for the chemical component and the different chemical component and determining an environmental performance score of the preliminary formula and a second formula, wherein the second formula utilizes the different chemical component. The formula having the highest environmental performance score is selected as the product. A second method includes tracking the use of chemical components in an existing product portfolio offered or sold by a business unit or a company, in which existing products having the lowest environmental performance scores would be targeted for replacement by reformulated products having higher environmental scores in order to improve the environmental performance of the business unit or company.