Title: environmentally friendly
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - environmentally friendly
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13958
Status: current

Definition
Qualifiers for a substance, device, or process that has minimal deleterious impact on the environment, which is air, water, minerals, living systems, etc.

Notes
1) The assignment of these qualifiers to a polymer must be based on a consistent life cycle assessment.
2) Ecocompatible is introduced to complement biocompatible, whose meaning is limited to living systems.

Related Term
- life cycle assessment: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13960

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 377. 'Terminology for biorelated polymers and applications (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 405 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-10-12-04)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13958/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13958/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13958/xml

Citation: Citation: 'environmentally friendly' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13958
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
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Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-06-04T20:39:42+00:00