The material basis of a sustainable society will depend on chemical products and processes that are designed following principles that make them conducive to life. Important inherent properties of molecules need to be considered from the earliest stage—the design stage—to address whether compounds and processes are depleting versus renewable, toxic versus benign, and persistent versus readily degradable. Products, feedstocks, and manufacturing processes will need to integrate the principles of green chemistry and green engineering under an expanded definition of performance that includes sustainability considerations. This transformation will require the best of the traditions of science and innovation coupled with new emerging systems thinking and systems design that begins at the molecular level and results in a positive impact on the global scale.

While Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies are being developed with the focus of capturing and storing CO₂ in huge quantities, new methods for the chemical exploitation of carbon dioxide (CCU) are being developed in parallel. The intensified chemical or physical utilization of CO₂ is targeted at generating value from a limited part of the CO₂ stream and developing better and more efficient chemical processes with reduced CO₂ footprint. Here, we compare the status of the three main lines of CCS technologies with respect to efficiency, energy consumption, and technical feasibility as well as the implications of CCS on the efficiency and structure of the energy supply chain.