Two faculty members from the Department of Chemistry are helping to help launch The Green Division--a new division of The Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC).
The CIC Green Subject Division is striving to bring together the community of researchers and educators who identify as contributing to, or having interest in, Green Chemistry and Engineering. Kylie Luska (Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream) and Barb Morra (Associate Professor, Teaching Stream) joined the executive committee of the division after its creation earlier this year, alongside other stakeholders from academia and industry.
“This strong connection to our department highlights U of T's work towards chemical education in sustainable chemistry,” said Luska.
Morra agreed, noting the department's long-standing and continued efforts toward more sustainable practices, research, and education.
The Green Division will be organizing a variety of interdisciplinary symposia at conferences like the Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition (CSC) and Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference (CSChE). The aim is to empower like-minded researchers and educators and provide professional training in sustainable practices in chemistry and engineering.
Symposia proposed for CSC in Ottawa in June 2025 include:
- Green and Sustainable Practices in Chemistry Education (joint with the Chemistry Education Division)
- Biocatalysis for a Circular Economy (joint with Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Division)
- Exploring Green Catalysis (joint with Inorganic Chemistry)
- Supramolecular Polymer Assemblies from Biomass (joint with the Materials Chemistry Division.)
- Emerging Sustainable Technologies (joint with the Organic Chemistry Division and industry)
- The Interdisciplinary Structure of Problem Solving in Industry and Government (joint with industry)
“Symposia are cross-listed with another CIC division and there are connections between academia and industry,” Luska explained.
Green and sustainable concerns touch all disciplines of chemistry and chemical engineering, according to Professor Joelle Pelletier of Université de Montréal, in a spring 2024 presentation to CIC introducing the new division. “Canadian green chemists, engineers and technologists need to increase global leadership in the face of pressing societal needs related to sustainability.”
Pelletier was deeply involved in building green and sustainable chemistry networks in Canada, explained Luska.
"The roots of the division spring from green chemistry networks that started to develop in Quebec over the past couple of decades. There were many researchers in the sustainable field in Quebec and in particular at Univerisité du Montreal and McGill University. Their collaboration led to the development of the Centre in Green Chemistry and Catalysis and other initiatives.”
“I did my PhD at McGill and was around when these networks were developing. For me, it’s exciting to see those networks contribute to the creation of this division so that we can now connect green and sustainable chemists and engineers from across Canada.
“For many years, green chemistry has gained traction in Canada but there is still so much work to be done!” said Professor Morra. “The benefits of having a formal CIC division will include operational consistency and a heightened ability to reach out to a variety of stakeholders, including faculty, students, researchers, industry leaders, and others across the country.”
The new division’s board includes professors and graduate students from Canadian universities, as well as one U of T Chemistry alumnus, Jonathan Moir, who completed his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2016 in Inorganic Chemistry with a focus on Nanomaterials and Electrochemistry. Moir was a founding member of the department’s Green Chemistry Initiative (GCI), a group of graduate students dedicated to promoting green chemistry principles and practices within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. Now located in Vancouver, he works for a non-profit organization called Beyond Benign, an organization devoted to developing and sharing educational resources for Green and Sustainable Chemistry.
Luska concluded: “The creation of this division is important so we can reach outside the circle of best-known green and sustainable chemists to meet and connect with like-minded people who may not think of themselves in those terms."
"The Green and Sustainable Chemistry community has always been an open and welcoming community. We are dedicated and motivated to bring the ideas of green and sustainable chemistry into research and educational practices in every subdiscipline, so everyone can come together under the umbrella of sustainable chemistry.”