Helsinki Chemicals Forum 2026 Programme
Wednesday 15 April
Master of Ceremony Giulia Sebastio, Programme Manager, at DG international partnerships, working on Nuclear Safety.
Programme Day 1
8:00–9:30 Helsinki Chemicals Forum, ChemBio and Pulp&Beyond Joint Breakfast (at the Conference Wing, invitation only)
9:30–10:00 Coffee and networking at HCF area
10:00–10:15 1st Opening keynote: The future of chemicals legislation in the EU, by Jessika Roswall, Environment Commissioner, tbc
10:15–10:30 2nd Opening keynote: How can the competitiveness of the European Chemicals Industry be restored and what is the role of European Chemicals Action Plan, by Kristin Schreiber, Director Chemicals, Food, Retail & Health, DG GROW, European Commission
10:30–10:45 3rd Opening keynote: Implementing EU chemicals policy changes – How ECHA’s role is evolving, by Sharon MacGuinness, Executive Director, ECHA
10:45–11:00 4th Opening keynote: One transformation, three societal wins: What the triple environmental crises demand of the chemical industry, by Meredith Williams, Former Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)
11:10–12:00 Opening of the Eurometaux sponsor exhibition & reception
12:00–13.30 Lunch at HCF area, and possibility to visit ChemBio
13:30–15:00 Panel 1: Aligning battery & recyling regulations to maximize the reuse of critical materials
15:00–15:30 Coffee and networking
15:30–17:00 Panel 2: How can chemicals industry help to resolve the triple environmental crises?
17:15–18:30 Joint drink with ChemBio DJ and drinks
18:30–19:00 Transit to the city hall
19:00–20:30 Reception and walking dinner at City Hall, ECHA Choir (Invitation only)
Panels
Panel 1: Aligning battery & recyling regulations to maximize the reuse of critical materials
13.30-15.00
Batteries play a crucial role in advancing the green transition, supporting sustainable mobility, and contributing to climate neutrality. Regulations aim at supporting competitive but also resilient and circular value chains, by keeping the materials used in batteries in the economy for longer. Rules are developed to ensure high-quality recycling and recovery of materials from waste batteries, particularly those containing critical and strategic raw materials as resources are either limited or subject to geopolitical/market issues. Guidelines are issued for recyclers to prevent unfair competition in the market for secondary raw materials from waste batteries.
Key questions:
- Can regulations and guidelines to recyclers can be used in a synergistic way to maximise the efficient and sustainable use of these materials in batteries?
- Currently, while there is a global supply gap of battery materials, countries/regions advance critical minerals strategies, policies, and partnerships in a siloed and competitive way. Can cooperation help?
- Can actors across the world and across the value chain to align on sustainability performance expectations for batteries?
- How can principles of transparency, traceability, accountability, circularity and competitiveness help with a sustainable use of critical and strategic battery materials? What does it take to implement these principles?
Moderator
Raymond Ng, Director EU, ChemLinked & REACH24H
Speakers
James Watson, Director General, Eurometaux
Ilka von Dalgwik, Director General, Recharge
Rana Pant, Waste to Resources Unit, DG ENV, European Commission
Martina Petronikova, Associate Professor, Chalmers University of Technology
Panel 2: How can chemicals industry help to resolve the triple environmental crises?
15.30-17.00
The chemical industry stands at a crossroad. The current chemical industry crisis in Europe creates both a challenge and an opportunity to rethink its trajectory. What can industry do to keep critical production in Europe and at the same time trigger major investments in defossilising and detoxifying the industry be leveraged to address other critical sustainability goals such as circularity, biodiversity protection, the bioeconomy, and inherently safer substances. What is the role of European Chemicals Industry Action plan? This session explores how smart policies and investments in the sector can lead a “triple win transformation” by saving its competitiveness and aligning its sustainability strategy with solutions that simultaneously address climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Such a long term approach has the potential to create a more resilient and competitive industry. Experts will discuss cutting-edge innovations, regulatory incentives, and business efforts and needs for a future industrial transformation.
Key questions:
- How can a long term strategy for the industry address both its immediate challenges and long term transformation to address multiple challenges? How to make sure that investments are future proof both in terms of sustainability and competitiveness in the international context
- How can policies that address chemicals – such as the Chemical Industry Action Plan, REACH reform, the Circular Economy Act and the Bioeconomy strategy be better aligned to support industry transformation?
- How can incentives and public private collaboration, particularly with the investment community address key barriers and challenges o the industry’s transformation?
Moderator
Leigh Springer, managing editor of Chemical Watch, Enhesa
Speakers
Kristin Schreiber, Director for Chemicals, DG GROW, European Commission
Tatiana Santos, Policy Manager, Chemicals & Nanotechnology, EEB
Ralf Schulz, Head of Corporate Transformation Strategy, Sika
Joel Tickner, Professor of Public Health, Umass Lowell, Strategic Advisor for Change Chemistry
Thursday 16 April
Programme Day 2
8:30–9:00 Welcoming and coffee
9:00–10:30 Panel 3: Stimulating substitution by regulatory and non-regulatory instruments
10:30–11:00 Coffee and networking at HCF area
11:00–12:30 Panel 4: The role of the Science-Policy Panel in making the GFC a success
12:30–13:00 Presentation at EPAA stand
13:00–14:15 Lunch by EPAA and possibility to visit Pulp & Beyond
14:15–15:45 Panel 5: Challenges to implement the Commission’s roadmap to end animal testing
15:45–16:00 Conclusions and end of the conference
Panels
Panel 3: Stimulating substitution by regulatory and non-regulatory instruments
9:00- 10.30
Innovation is crucial for the chemical industry to remain competitive. Focusing efforts into the substitution of the most hazardous chemicals, where risks cannot be properly controlled can create important synergies to tackle pollution, offer new business opportunities and promote competitiveness at the same time. Bringing alternatives to technical maturity and scaling up innovative applications to industrial deployment remains however a significant challenge. In order to overcome innovation barriers and accelerate the development of safer and more sustainable solutions, the European Commission plans to support the substitution of targeted chemicals through the creation of a network of EU Innovation and substitution Hubs and through exploring collaborative approaches to the substitution of targeted chemicals. These hubs, inspired by the INCITE model, will help companies, especially SMEs, in horizon scanning, in identifying and evaluating alternatives, fostering partnerships, and sharing knowledge. Integrating concepts such as Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) and building upon an ongoing Commission pilot project on how best to set up such a network, this approach can also usefully complement and support the ongoing regulatory work, for example on substituting PFAS, in particular in industrial and technical uses where substitution tends to be less straightforward than in many consumer uses.
Key questions:
- What are the factors of success of such hubs?
- How can such approaches complement regulation in stimulating for instance alternative substances for technical uses of PFAS substances?
- What is needed to provide a predictable framework for investments?
- How can such a framework be sufficiently demanding to promote innovation and speedy substitution while avoiding disruptions of critical products and services for society and recognising technical, economic and legal constraints?
Moderator
Otto Linher, Senior Expert of the REACH Unit, DG GROW, European Commission
Speakers
René Korenromp, Policy co-ordinator, Dutch Ministry of the Infrastructure and the Environment
Aidan Turnbull, Product environmental compliance and management systems, Apple
Teresa Kjell, Head of Chemicals Policy, Chemsec
Ian Cousins, Professor of Environmental Organic Chemistry, Stockholm and Lancaster Universities
Panel 4: The role of the Science-Policy Panel in making the GFC a success
11.00-12.30
The panel will focus on the potential of the newly established Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (ISP-CWP) to contribute to the success of the Global Framework on Chemicals (GFC). The creation of the Panel provides new opportunities to strengthen the science-policy interface and promote evidence-based solutions. Whilst recognizing that the work programme of the ISP-CWP is yet to be approved by its Plenary, it is strategic to consider how its functions – which includes assessment and horizon scanning – can inform chemicals management policies and action to tackle the global environmental crises and prevent pollution. Experts will discuss how cooperation and coordination with the ISP-CWP can foster implementation of the objectives of the Global Framework on Chemicals and measure progress towards its targets of success.
Key Questions:
- What benefits can close interactions between GFC and ISP-CWP generate and how would this contribute to the GFC Implementation Programmes?
- What role could the ISP-CWP play in supporting the collation, verification and analysis of data for the GFC to measure its progress against the 28 targets and 5 strategic objectives?
- How can stakeholders engaged in the GFC best contribute to the ISP-CWP and vice-versa, especially when assessing new emerging policy issues or issues of concern?
Moderator
Jacqueline Alvarez, Chief of the Chemicals Branch, UNEP
Speakers
Peter Korytar, Team leader, Safe and sustainable chemicals Unit, DG ENV, European Commission
Erik Rushton, Director Toxicology and Risk Communication, LyondellBasell
Giulia Carlini, Manager and senior attorney, CIEL
Lamin Jaiteh, Registrar of Pesticides and hazardous Chemicals, National Environment Agency, The Gambia
Panel 5: Challenges to implement the Commission’s roadmap to end animal testing
14.15-15.45
The European Roadmap to phase out animal testing is a critical milestone along the path to modernize chemical management frameworks. However, there are a number of challenges to implement a robust chemical safety testing framework that does not use animals. From the methodological perspective, non-animal methods will need to be used in combination to recapitulate the complex interactions that occur in living organisms. Identifying appropriate information sources and determining how to combine outputs to be reliable, reproducible, and relevant for assessing chemical toxicity will require agreement on appropriate standards for benchmarking predictions. From the decision-making perspective, the level of acceptable uncertainty associated with non-animal methods will need to be discussed and agreed, particularly for chemicals for which non-animal method indicate the chemical is safe. From the perspective reducing animal testing, test guidelines that use animals are validated and internationally harmonized through the OECD, and thus results of tests are shared among countries following the Mutual Acceptance of Data. Unless non-animal approaches are similarly harmonized, the number of animals used in toxicity testing will not be meaningfully reduced.
Key Questions:
- How can the toxicological community help assure non-animal methods will be accepted under current European chemicals legislations that may specify data requirements by (in vivo) test guidelines?
- How can we build confidence in the conclusion that a chemical is “safe” using non-animal methods for evaluating chemical safety?
- How can we use the momentum of the Roadmap to construct a modern framework for evaluating chemical safety that relies on the best available science? Who needs to be engaged and when?
- Safety assessment factors were used to account for differences in species, individuals, and other sources of uncertainty associated with extrapolating information from rodents to humans (or other animal models to all wildlife species). How could similar safety assessment factors be applied to methods that do not use animals?
- When is the right time during the implementation of the EU roadmap to engage other countries in developing harmonised approaches
Moderator
Patience Browne, Principal Administrator, Environmental Directorate, OECD
Speakers
Katia Lacasse, Head of Regulatory Science Strategy, Unilever, Industry Co-Chair at EPAA
Georg Streck, Policy officer, REACH Unit, DG GROW, European Commission
Ofelia Bercaru, Director Prioritisation and integration, ECHA
Julia Pochat, Political advisor chemicals strategy, Eurogroup for Animals