On December 12, 2016, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) released a draft Alternatives Analysis (AA) Guide under the state’s green chemistry program, Safer Consumer Products (SCP). Under the SCP program, product designers and manufacturers are encouraged to reduce or eliminate the use of certain targeted chemicals in their products, and the Guide is intended to help businesses navigate the SCP Alternatives Analysis process.  It also provides useful approaches, methods, resources, tools, and examples of best practices.

Clocking in at over 200 pages, the draft Guide is far from light reading, but businesses and trade associations that use chemicals currently or that are potentially targeted in the SCP process should keep close tabs on AA developments  and consider submitting comments. AAs will impose substantial expense on companies and industries, in part because the California SCP legislation establishes proscriptive requirements that no currently available AA tool will meet.