We examine polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as one example of the ethical challenges that the chemical industry faces when putting green chemistry into practice. Green chemistry has emerged as a powerful new philosophy for designing molecules, reactions, and products to be intrinsically non-toxic and sustainable. We consider three issues: Should the chemical industry overcome the inertia of path dependent technologies and introduce safer, more sustainable technologies? What will motivate companies and their employees to practice green chemistry under conditions where changing technologies and businesses can create substantial economic, market, and technical risks? How should the precautionary principle be applied in terms of the real-world complexities of manufacturing chemicals? To do so, we look at examples of environmental and health harms in the feedstock and PVC manufacturing lifecycle stages, along with green chemistry solutions that could be employed. PVC suggests how difficult it could be to adopt green chemistry solutions; nonetheless, these solutions may make significant contributions across the chemical industry generally.

We examine Bisphenol-A (BPA) as a case that illustrates key challenges in addressing the public health risks of consumer products in the 21st century. First, we trace growing concerns about the effects of BPA on human health, showing how regulatory approaches can exacerbate the difficulty of dealing with the unforeseen risks of chemicals in consumer products. Second, we highlight the question of who should bear the responsibility – and the cost – of rectifying or preventing unforeseen chemical risks in consumer products. Third, we discuss the challenge of substituting out a potentially hazardous chemical from consumer products in the context of well established global production chains and consumption patterns. Utilitarian and deontological ethical frameworks have influenced societal debates surrounding each of these three challenges, creating moral dilemmas for actors with different forms of moral agency – both those implicated in the production of harmful chemicals and those pursuing remedies.

Outlook 2017 is a truly global source book reflected in the varied national and cultural origins of the contributors as well as the topics and case studies covered. The book includes selection of the best papers presented during the 15th International Conference of World Association for Sustainable Development (WASD), held in Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain in the period 25th to 27th April 2017. The conference was hosted by Ahlia University Bahrain and under the Patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa, The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The conference provided a forum for academics, government and industry to discuss the various challenges facing the world particularly the Middle East and North Africa countries in their efforts to achieve a sustainable knowledge-based inclusive development.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) are often conspicuously absent in policy discussions and strategic planning about food security and the environmental sustainability of food systems. However, findings from a recent study of UK-based CSOs indicate that these groups make a variety of important contributions towards innovation in both policy and practice. This briefing paper draws attention to the disconnection between the narrowly constrained treatment of CSOs within policy circles, and the broad range of different ways that they actually engage with and influence policy and market conditions. Its purpose is to provoke new ways of thinking about civil society and provide CSOs with a new logic (and evidence) to underpin their efforts to leverage resources.

Key messages are as follows:
- UK-based CSOs have historically made significant contributions to the innovation trajectories of our food and agriculture systems
- In contrast to markets, which tend towards homogeneity and are fuelled by competition, characteristics of civil society that crucially underpin these contributions are diversity and collaboration
- Policy ignorance of civil society – its purposes, how it operates and its contributions to the development of agro-food systems – must be addressed, e.g. by incentivising and creating spaces for exchange of ideas and practices between CSOs, policy-makers and academics
- Established ways of engaging CSOs in the governance of agro-food systems must be re-thought and more appropriate modes and levels of intervention in and support for civil society must be sought

Cities are in a constant state of evolution, and made up of many different system: energy, transport, healthcare, security, water treatment and so on. There is a significant push by governments around the world to integrate these services using the internet. This presentation looks at some history, current progress and opportunities.