Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) such as the U.S. EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory have been established throughout the world to track emissions and other waste management quantities (e.g. quantities recycled or used for energy recovery) of potentially harmful chemicals. Many countries have established their own PRTR or started a pilot PRTR, and many more countries plan to implement their own PRTRs in the coming years. PRTRs are practical and powerful pollution prevention tools. As a result of the ever increasing emphasis on sustainability as an international priority, there is a growing need to evaluate progress towards reducing emissions and other waste management quantities of harmful chemicals at the global level. Hence, more attention is being placed on the use of information collected and made available by PRTRs to assess progress. To this end, the OECD Task Force on PRTRs developed a framework document titled “The Role of PRTR Data in Global Sustainability Analyses” that defines the role of PRTRs in sustainable development, and illustrates how PRTR data and information can be used to assess progress towards global sustainability. The document specifically addresses: 1) how differences among PRTRs in terms of chemical coverage, sector cover, and reporting frequency can be overcome; and 2) how data from different PRTR systems can be integrated or combined in order to conduct global-scale analyses. Section 2.4 of the framework document is aligned with some of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were finalized and promulgated in 2015. Three of the 17 SDGs are directly relevant to the use of PRTRs to measuring progress in sustainable development. Since many of the U.S. EPA’s TSCA Workplan Chemicals are included on the TRI list of toxic chemicals, and the chemical lists of other pollutant release and transfer register systems implemented by other countries, the OECD Task Force on PRTRs has recently initiated a project that will apply the “The Role of PRTR Data in Global Sustainability Analyses” framework to the United Nations’ SDGs, using some of the TSCA Workplan Chemicals as a starting group of chemicals. This presentation will discuss this effort.

Role of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) in achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals

254th National Meeting (2017)

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