The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive have launched a global competition to identify innovators developing preservatives with improved environmental health and safety profiles for use in cosmetics, personal care, and household products with a prize pool of $175,000 available.

P&G and J&J are among the sponsors of the contest, which will award three to five cash prizes from the $175,000 prize pool, with a minimum single prize award of $25,000. The competition is reportedly open to broad-spectrum or single action chemical agents effective on gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, yeast and mold, as well as preservative boosters and multi-functional ingredients that have a primary non-preserving function yet enhance antimicrobial efficacy.

Regulatory bans and restrictions, coupled with increasing stakeholder concerns around the potential health impacts of several widely used chemicals, are considered to be reducing the current palette of acceptable preservatives. Repordetly, due to these issues, seventeen competition sponsors are looking for novel preservativesor preservative boosterseffective in protecting consumer products from contamination.  The sponsors are looking to partner with innovators to co-develop, license or invest in new technologies to speed them to market.

For more information, visit www.greenchemistryandcommerce.org or www.innocentive.com.