5. Conclusions: what do we need moving forward?
To understand if our activities are leading us towards the goal of mainstreaming green chemistry, we need both a concerted, comprehensive effort to measure progress at all four levels – molecular, product/chemical, firm, and societal – and the right set of metrics and data to support that effort. Such an effort would need to engage chemists, policy makers, educators, businesses across sectors and advocates to ensure measures of progress cover a broad range of perspectives on what it means to “mainstream green chemistry.” The process of developing metrics could consist of a number of steps: