GreenScreen List Translator™ provides a “list of lists” approach to quickly identify chemicals of high concern. It does this by scoring chemicals based on information from over 40 hazard lists developed by authoritative scientific bodies convened by international, national and state governmental agencies, intergovernmental agencies and NGOs.
Each of these GreenScreen Specified Lists is mapped to hazard endpoints and a hazard level or range based on the GreenScreen Hazard Criteria. Similar to a full GreenScreen Assessment, the hazard classifications for endpoints are then used to derive a GreenScreen List Translator score.
A Chemical Abstract Service Registry Number (CASRN) most often uniquely identifies chemical substances (substances) on hazard-based lists, such as GreenScreen Specified Lists. In some cases, however, chemical groups of structurally related compounds (e.g., beryllium and beryllium compounds) are listed.
There is currently no global, harmonized system for determining which specific chemicals belong within each chemical group. In some cases a hazard list will specify which chemicals are considered to fall within a given chemical group, and in some cases only a chemical group name is provided.
To implement scores in as consistent a manner as possible, toxnot has taken the following approach:
- We prioritize CASRN as the concrete definition of what a list is referring to.
- For GreenScreen Specified Lists that only provide a chemical group name and no CASRNs, toxnot uses CASRNs listed in the GADSL chemicals list to expand named groups whenever this is determined to be the intent of the list and is technically possible.
- The original entries from each list (e.g. "Lead and lead compounds") are preserved and scored but are often incomplete on their own since they do not match up by CASRN with other lists.
- We allow users to note chemicals where conflicting CASRNs or names may have lead to duplicate entry so they can be reviewed.
- We encourage users to understand that GreenScreen List Translator™ is a screen for chemicals of known concern, but the lack of a listing is not a determination in any way that a chemical has no hazards associated with it.
The fields "chemical family", "also called" and "applications and functional uses" are listed as general information to enhance text searches but they are not used in GreenScreen List Translator™ scoring.
Note that grouping of substances in chemical groups is currently under development; we will work with Clean Production Action and other GreenScreen List Translator™ Software Providers to enhance consistency.