Our industrial activities and daily life are supported by various kinds of chemical substances. These chemical substances, however, have a wide range of impacts when they are released into the environment. It has been concerned that the chemical substances in the environment may exert some harm to environmental organisms and humans, and there have been already some observations of the actual cases of such harm.

The Research Center for Chemical Risk Management (CRM) is engaged in research activities in chemical risk assessment and management which support maintaining a good balance between the environmental safety and use of chemical substances. CRM promotes science-based decision making among government, industry and public in chemical risk management through providing the frameworks of chemical risk assessment and management as well as actual examples in which such frameworks are applied.

The unique concept of CRM’s research is to estimate and evaluate environmental effects of chemical substances as events of probability, i.e. risks. This is based on the premise that “there is no such thing as absolute safety; risks are always present.” This is a fundamentally new approach different from the traditional environmental impact assessment of chemical substances which have aimed to verify the safety of individual substances based on the premise that “there is a safe level at which chemicals can be used.”

By introducing the new concept of “risk” rather than using polarized criteria (“Is it safe? Or is it dangerous?”), it is possible to compare and evaluate multiple numbers of chemical substances that may have environmental impacts. Also, the concept of risk makes it possible to evaluate effectiveness and economical viability of risk reduction and management methods and to make rational judgments.

CRM’s activities are founded on three pillars: basic research, practical research, and contributing to society. Society outreach to disseminate the outcomes of our research activities in risk assessment and management is positioned as one of CRM’s important missions together with our research activities.

CRM conducts innovative research, works with government and industry to promote environmental safety through science-based and sustainable solutions, and disseminates research findings and recommendations about chemical risk assessment and management to the general public and policymakers.