Objectives:

The EU’s chemicals strategy aims to

• better protect citizens and the environment
• boost innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals

Actions:

• banning the most harmful chemicals in consumer products - allowing their use only where essential
• account for the cocktail effect of chemicals when assessing risks from chemicals
• phasing out the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the EU, unless their use is essential
• boosting the investment and innovative capacity for production and use of chemicals that are safe and sustainable by design, and throughout their life cycle
• promoting the EU’s resilience of supply and sustainability of critical chemicals
• establishing a simpler “one substance one assessment”  process for the risk and hazard assessment of chemicals
• playing a leading role globally by championing and promoting high standards and not exporting chemicals banned in the EU

Implementation of the Chemicals Strategy: The Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability outlines over 80 actions, and sets an indicative timing for their implementation. The Commission provides a regular update of the state of implementation of the actions in the tracking table.

Related legislation:

Communication COM/2020/667 Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability Towards a Toxic-Free Environment

The Chemicals strategy for sustainability promped several legal revisions

• Revision of the Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)
• Revision of EU legislation on hazard classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals (CLP)
• Revision of EU rules on food contact materials
• Revision of the Industrial Emissions Directive
• Sustainable Product Initiative