International Activities - Europe CEFIC (European Chemical Industry Council)

Website: www.cefic.be




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CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council, is both the forum and the voice of the European chemical industry.

It represents, directly or indirectly, about 40,000 large, medium and small chemical companies which employ about 1.7 million people and account for nearly a third of world chemical production.

CEFIC was incorporated in 1972 as an international association with scientific objectives. It is constantly reviewing its priorities, its structures and its ways of operating in order to adapt to new circumstances and challenges. Some of these are illustrated sector by sector by information taken from the CEFIC website.

Research, Science & Innovation

Scientific innovation allows us to improve our lives while using resources more efficiently, and to better understand and manage the potential impact of these innovations on the surrounding environment and human health.

The chemical industry has played a key role in the development of such new products and techniques, as well as in impact assessment research, consistently allocating a large portion of its resources to research and development.

Through various activities, the chemical industry is involved in research and technological innovation to address public and regulatory concerns about the industry#s products and processes. Research sponsored or supported by CEFIC helps extend the scope of our knowledge, enabling the industry and society as a whole to make more informed decisions.

CEFIC's activities in research and development include:

• The Long Range Research Initiative (LRI), a global research initiative of the chemical industry, which funds independent research into the interaction between chemicals, human health and the environment.
• The SUStainable TECHnology programme (SUSTECH), a collection of scientific groups involved in helping design cleaner, safer and more efficient manufacturing processes, and supporting innovation through partnerships.
• The Alliance for Chemical Sciences and Technologies in Europe (AllChemE), an alliance of organisations representing academics and industry experts in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering. AllChemE promotes the strengths and benefits of chemical sciences and technologies for today's society.

Agriculture

Methods of cultivating the soil, harvesting crops and raising livestock have changed with time. Today#s agriculture relies on a wide variety of fertilisers, biocides, food additives, insecticides, pesticides and herbicides. The benefits are numerous: the use of crop protection products in modern agriculture secures yields, reduces crop losses and helps to provide a sufficient and sustainable supply of food.

What are the effects of these products on health? Crop protection products reduce the level of natural toxins produced by fungi and bacteria in food crops, and so help to reduce the number of food-related illnesses. Moreover, all these products (insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc.) undergo a rigorous approval process before they are authorised for marketing and use.

Biotechnology

Known as #the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing of materials by biological agents", biotechnology could also be defined more simply as #using biological processes to make useful products#.

In fact, biotechnology is far from new. It existed thousands years ago when the ancient Egyptians were using living organisms such as yeasts to make bread and cheese. Our ancestors have always been looking for ways to produce more food or new foods. Plant breeders, for example, crossed plants to produce varieties with specified characteristics such as a particular petal colour or better resistance against a virus.

The difference with modern biotechnology is that today#s scientists can precisely identify the one particular gene that governs the desired trait. They will then extract this gene from one organism, copy it and insert this copy into another organism, which will transfer it to its offspring. Although the subject of controversial debate, modern biotechnology has applications in a wide number of fields: healthcare (medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, gene therapy); food and agriculture (genetically modified products such as tomatoes that produce fruit early for places that have a short summer, or wheat that resists diseases like rust); environmental clean up (herbicide and pest resistant plants); and so on.

And this is only a beginning. Research currently under way will greatly increase the numbers and uses of the products of biotechnology. For example, researchers are developing foods with improved nutritional qualities, plants that can resist drought and animals with higher quality meat.

Biotechnology can also play a part in the complex issue of world hunger. Over the long term, the use of genetically modified plants will enable harvest/crop losses to be reduced and harvest yields to be secured and increased. It will also be possible to produce plants with better nutritional value (such as rice varieties with enhanced contents of vitamin A) or fruit that delivers vaccines for diseases that devastate Third World populations.

Oleochemistry

Oleochemicals are made from vegetable and animal oils and fats and/or petrochemicals feedstocks. They range from fatty acids, glycerine, alcohols and metallic soaps to fatty nitriles and their derivatives.

By applying chemical know-how, oleochemicals feedstocks are converted into a wide range of chemical products for use in lubricants, soaps and detergents, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food additives, leather, paints and coatings, printing inks, rubber, plastics, metal-working and many other industries. In fact, few products have a wider range of application than oleochemicals.