ABSTRACT
Considering the global interest in the last Copenhagen summit (2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 7-18, 2009), one can assume that sustainability is now considered to be an urgent matter to deal with, at least as a political issue. In fact, this term has been de›ned more than 20 years ago by the United Nations, following the work of the Brundtland commission, as “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987). Furthermore, green chemistry has been de›ned as the design of chemical products and process to reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances (Anastas and Warner, 1998). Nowadays, green chemistry has become one of the prominent branches of chemistry, as demonstrated, for example, with the creation of well-renowned U.S. Presidential Green Chemistry Awards in 1995 or release of the ›rst volume of green chemistry by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1999. In order to help chemists to move toward sustainable development, Anastas and Warner proposed 12 rules, which may be considered as a toolbox for “green chemists” (Anastas and Warner, 1998). Sometimes referred to as Twelve Principles of green chemistry, they are summarized in Figure 26.1.
