What we do
CHEM Trust is a collaboration between CHEM Trust, a UK-registered charity, and CHEM Trust Europe, a charity based in Germany. Read more about the CHEM Trust team.
Both charities work together closely to achieve our primary aim – to prevent hazardous chemicals from causing long-term damage to wildlife or humans.
We work with policy makers, scientists, and other charities and civil society groups to campaign for restrictions on hazardous chemicals, and ensure that they are replaced with safer alternatives. We specifically focus on chemicals that can disrupt the endocrine system, and persistent chemicals.
Read about how CHEM Trust’s work has contributed to more protective EU chemicals policy.
A world-first system for calling out harmful chemicals
CHEM Trust, alongside scientists, NGOs and Member States was part of a big push to ensure the European Union agreed a set of criteria for identifying and controlling hormone disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in pesticides and biocides.
This is the first scheme of its kind in the world. It’s a milestone in the fight to protect ourselves and the wider environment from chemicals that damage the hormone system.
Several years ago the EU Commission began to develop criteria to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), as a basis for judging whether a pesticide or biocide (substances which control unwanted organisms such as disinfectants) should be restricted.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) interfere with the body’s hormone system. They can cause serious harm to humans and wildlife, including lifelong neurological and reproductive problems.
CHEM Trust has been working on this issue since its founding in 2007 and became actively involved in EU expert groups, bringing our expertise, insights and concerns about these chemicals to bear on the formation of the EDC criteria.
The European Union officially adopted the criteria in November 2017 and they came into force in 2018. CHEM Trust and our partners, in a coalition of non-governmental organisations called EDC-Free Europe, had a significant hand in bringing this about.
The criteria that the EU is using have weaknesses, but they are setting a global example and they do establish a key framework for calling out and regulating these harmful chemicals. This makes them a vital building block in the long-term effort to protect the health of humans and wildlife.
As the criteria for biocides and pesticides were not suitable to be implemented across all pieces of EU legislation, in 2023, the EU reached another significant milestone: The decision makers introduced new hazard classes for identifying EDCs, as well as persistent and mobile chemicals, for use across sectors under the EU’s classification law. The EU is the first region in the world to have introduced these hazard classes.
This is a meaningful step that requires companies to assess and label their chemicals with these harmful properties, in turn making it easier for consumers to avoid them. At the same time, other EU laws will start regulating their use in different applications and products.
Alongside our coalition partners, we are still pushing for better regulation of all EDCs in the EU. Long-term, we want to see all EDCs removed from new products and processes so that they no longer affect the health of humans and wildlife.
Read this statement on seven properties to protect people and environment from endocrine disrupting chemicals, developed by the EDC-Free coalition, of which CHEM Trust is a partner.
Regulating whole groups of harmful chemicals
Another area where CHEM Trust’s work is making important gains is on the regulation of bisphenol A (BPA).
BPA is a chemical used in polycarbonate plastics, and resins which can be found in food can linings. It is widely found in the general population, including in children. Yet it is an officially recognised as an endocrine-disrupting chemical, (EDC) which can contribute to serious health problems in humans.
Thanks in part to our work, the past 10 years has seen the European Union begin to take action on BPA. It has restricted the use of BPA in till receipts, and has banned the use of BPA from babies’ bottles and feeding cups. This is encouraging because early-years exposure to BPA during can be particularly harmful.
Such action from the EU is great news. The problem, however, is that industry has a tendency simply to replace BPA with very similar chemicals which may also be harmful – for example, bisphenol S (BPS). Our analysis is that whole groups of chemicals sharing similar structures should be regulated together to avoid this so-called “regrettable” substitution. CHEM Trust has been calling for the need for such grouping in regulation, using our report “From BPA to BPZ: A toxic soup?” as evidence.
Since we produced the report in 2018 the thinking of public authorities has indeed started to change. We are pleased that the European Chemical Agency has increased resources to work on grouping. It has also said that from early 2020 it will assess chemically similar substances together “systematically” – and we understand this to mean it’s open to the need to regulate whole groups of chemicals.
With the continued support of our partners CHEM Trust will follow this development closely. In particular we will advocate for the fast-tracking of regulation for chemical groups rather than individual substances so as to give better protection to the health of humans and wildlife.
More protective EU legislation on hazardous chemicals in toys
For many years, CHEM Trust has highlighted that children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of hazardous chemicals, and called for chemical policies that protect the most vulnerable in our society. Certain EU chemical laws include measures to specifically limit young children’s exposure to such chemicals. However, in many cases, the legislation is still not protective enough.
Alongside many other civil society organisations, we have raised concerns about hazardous chemicals in children’s toys, urging policymakers to act. Testing has found harmful chemicals in toys, including many types of bisphenols in baby teethers and PFAS in foam toys.
The EU decided to revise the Toy Safety Directive following a Commission evaluation in 2020, which found the directive did not sufficiently protect children from a range of harmful chemicals. After the Commission published a proposal for a new Toy Safety Regulation in July 2023, CHEM Trust joined with a wide group of civil society stakeholders to write to Members of the European Parliament and Ministers of Member States, asking them to strengthen the Commission’s proposal.
The European Parliament and Council agreed on a revised Regulation in April 2025, with both giving final approval for the law in October and November 2025. It entered into force on 1st January 2026, and will start applying in August 2030 after a transition period of 4.5 years for manufacturers to implement the new measures.
The Toy Safety Directive already restricted the use of substances classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, or reprotoxic (CMRs) in toys. The Toy Safety Regulation introduces a range of new measures that better protect children against some of the most harmful chemicals in toys, including a ban on chemicals that have been classified under the Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulation (CLP) as known or suspected endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). CHEM Trust has worked for many years to improve protections against EDCs, so this is a very welcome measure in the regulation. It also introduces group bans on 10 hazardous bisphenols and PFAS, the forever chemicals.
Ioana Bere, EU Policy Advocate at CHEM Trust, comments: “Every child deserves to grow up without being exposed to harmful chemicals. Toxic chemicals do not belong in children’s toys, and this regulation shows that the EU is taking action to ensure this.”
