The use of sustainable metal-based catalysts for the synthesis of five-membered ring containing cyclic carbonates from epoxides and carbon dioxide is critically reviewed. Coverage is restricted to catalysis by the abundant metals: sodium, potassium, aluminium, calcium, titanium and iron and the relative merits and limitations of each catalyst syste m are compared.

Copolymerisation of a sorbitol‐derived bis‐carbonate with simple diamines, including cadaverine that was sustainably produced from lysine, under solvent‐free conditions was shown to produce rigid foams. Thermogravimetric analysis carried out in tandem with infrared spectroscopy of the released gases confirmed that the foaming agent was carbon dioxide produced during the polymerisation process itself. Such a bio‐based foam, being made under mild conditions from stable, benign precursors, with no toxic isocyanates, has great potential application for both thermal insulation and packaging.

A tandem Diels–Alder addition and lactonisation between bio-derivable itaconic anhydride and furfuryl alcohol can be used to prepare novel monomers for ROMP.

What is the most significant result of this study?Developing green solvents to replace petrochemically-derived conventional solvents is currently one of the major challenges in sustainable chemistry.T he most significant result of our work is that Hansen Solubility Parameter Space can be used to predict mixtures of two green solvents that have similar properties to conventional solvents such as chloroalkanes for which no effective single-component replacements exist. We illustrate the applicability of the methodology by applying it to solid-phase peptide synthesis and polymer dissolution, but many other applications can be envisaged.