The Substitute It Now! List is a database developed by

the International Chemical Secretariat The International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec) is a governmental funded organisation founded in Sweden in 2002 to advocate in favour of stricter regulatory controls on potentially hazardous chemicals and to work with businesses on reducing the ...

(ChemSec) of chemicals the uses of which are likely to become legally restricted under EU REACH regulation. The list is being used by public interest groups as a campaign tool to advocate for increasing the pace of implementation of REACH and by commercial interests to identify substances for control in chemicals management programmes. SIN List 2.1 update: new information from REACH registrations extends the SIN List
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History and development

The SIN List is composed of chemicals evaluated by the environmental NGO ChemSec as meeting EU criteria for being

Substances of Very High Concern A substance of very high concern (SVHC) is a chemical substance (or part of a group of chemical substances) concerning which it has been proposed that use within the European Union be subject to authorisation under the REACH Regulation. Indeed, li ...

(SVHCs) under Article 57 of

REACH Reach or REACH may refer to: Companies and organizations * Reach plc, formerly Trinity Mirror, large British newspaper, magazine, and digital publisher * Reach Canada, an NGO in Canada * Reach Limited, an Asia Pacific cable network company ...

, being either

carcinogen A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive subst ...

ic,

mutagen In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that permanently changes genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations can cause cancer i ...

ic or

reprotoxic Reproductive toxicity refers to the potential risk from a given chemical, physical or biologic agent to adversely affect both male and female fertility as well as offspring development. Reproductive toxicants may adversely affect sexual function ...

(CMR),

persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances (PBTs) are a class of compounds that have high resistance to degradation from abiotic and biotic factors, high mobility in the environment and high toxicity. Because of these factors PBTs have bee ...

(PBT), very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB), or posing an equivalent environmental or health threat., The first SIN List, known as version 1.0, was published in 2008 and identified 267 chemicals as meeting the Article 57 criteria for being SVHCs. ChemSec's assessment was independently validated by the Technical University of Denmark. In 2009 a further 89 substances were added to the SIN List (Version 1.1), before in 2011 another 22 chemicals were added (Version 2.0) for fulfilling the REACH 57(f) criterion of equivalent concern as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The 2011 EDC additions were made in consultation with TEDX, the US endocrine-disruption research NGO founded by Professor Theo Colborn, and coincided with EU plans over 2011–2012 to develop accepted criteria for identifying

endocrine disrupting chemicals Endocrine disruptors, sometimes also referred to as hormonally active agents, endocrine disrupting chemicals, or endocrine disrupting compounds are chemicals that can interfere with endocrine (or hormonal) systems. These disruptions can cause c ...

. In October 2014, the list was updated, this time with 28 new chemicals. With this update, the SIN List was also divided into 31 groups, and a tool for sustainable substitution based on the SIN List – SINimilarity – was presented.

SIN List Advisory Committee

The development of the SIN List is guided by a nine-member NGO advisory committee: * The

Center for International Environmental Law The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is a public nonprofit environmental law firm based in Geneva, Switzerland with an office in Washington, DC, United States. It was founded in 1989. CIEL's team aims to "strength and use interna ...

The European Consumers’ Organisation

CHEM Trust

Clean Production Action (CPA)
*

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth ...

European Unit *

European Environmental Bureau The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) is a network of around 170 environmental citizens' organisations based in more than 35 countries. The EEB is a democratic federation, representing local, national, European and international groups in E ...

ClientEarth ClientEarth is an environmental law charity, with offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin, Beijing, Madrid and Los Angeles. It was founded in 2008 by James Thornton and the organisation's CEO is Laura Clarke. As lawyers and environment ...

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split wi ...

Europe
European Trade Union Institute
*

Women in Europe for a Common Future Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF), formerly known as Women in Europe for a Common Future, is a non-governmental organization established in 1994 following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The aim of the organization is to "achieve a ...

The Health and Environment Alliance

Impact

EU Legislation

The disparity between the length of the SIN List in comparison to the 15 chemicals nominated by the EU as SVHCs in October 2008 was used to pressure the European regulatory authorities and Member States to accelerate the nomination process. In 2011 Members of the European Parliament's Environment Committee cited the SIN List in criticising the European Commission for continuing slow progress on EDCs and evaluation of safety of chemicals in mixtures. EU regulators have been cautiously welcoming of the SIN List. Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission, stated that she welcomed initiatives such as the SIN List “

hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...

draw the attention of the public and industry to the most hazardous chemicals that should be a priority for inclusion in the REACH authorisation procedure”. European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik has referred to the SIN list as “ ndicatingthe substances the European Commission will take into consideration for placement on th
candidate list
Industry representative group CEFIC has criticised the publication of the list for occurring outside the legal design of REACH.

Commercial substitution

Sony Ericsson, Sara Lee, Skanska, Marks & Spencer, Dell and Carrefour are on record as referring to the SIN List in their chemical substitution programmes. The SIN List is also used by other public interest groups in lobbying companies to substitute or phase out hazardous chemicals.

Socially Responsible Investment

The potential for legal restrictions on chemical use increasing costs associated with reformulating products and modifying processes has resulted in SIN List data being used by investment analysis firms concerned with

Socially Responsible Investment Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about socia ...

, to aid in calculating financial risk posed by companies’ sustainability profiles. In March 2013 ChemSec published th
SIN Producers List
a list of the 709 companies manufacturing or importing SIN List substances in the EU. The list is derived from data presented in the

European Chemicals Agency The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA; ) is an agency of the European Union which manages the technical and administrative aspects of the implementation of the European Union regulation called Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restrict ...

(ECHA) database of registered substances. ChemSec has together with

requested information about producers of REACH registered substances to be made publicly available, and launched a lawsuit against the European Chemicals Agency on this issue in 2011.

References

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