Companies Join To Fund Global Preservative Search

The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive will launch a global competition to identify and award prizes to innovators with promising, safe and effective preservative systems for cosmetics, personal care and household products.  A prize pool of $175,000 is available.  

The competition is sponsored by 10 consumer product companies, two major retailers, four chemical suppliers, an NGO and a government agency: Babyganics, Beautycounter, Beiersdorf, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Method – People Against Dirty, Procter & Gamble (P&G), Reckitt Benckiser (RB), SC Johnson, Unilever, Target, Walmart, Dow Microbial Control, Lonza, Schülke, Thor, Environmental Defense Fund and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.  The corporations sponsoring the competition seek to partner with innovators to co-develop, license or invest in new technologies to speed them to market.

Preservatives are substances that are added to products to retard microbial growth, prevent product degradation, and protect consumer safety. In addition to being used in foods, preservatives are added to household and personal care products, ranging from shampoos, hand creams, and laundry detergents.

Due to concerns about the safety of some preservatives that have been in wide use and the potential impact of repeated contact with these chemicals on human health, the sponsors desire new and effective preservatives or preservative boosters with improved environmental health and safety profiles for use in cosmetics, personal care and household products.

This competition will award cash prizes from the $175,000 prize pool, with a minimum single prize award of $25,000.  The sponsors seek submissions for broad spectrum or single action chemical agents that are effective on gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, yeast, and mold; preservative boosters and multi-functional ingredients that have a primary non-preserving function, yet enhance antimicrobial efficacy. 

Up to five finalists will be invited to present their technologies at a meeting in the first quarter of 2018 in the U.S. and to network with representatives from consumer product companies, major retailers, and preservative suppliers.

All innovators who submit to this competition will gain significant visibility and receive feedback on their technologies. An innovator does not have to be a finalist in order to be afforded these opportunities.
 
More info: www.greenchemistryandcommerce.org/