1. Prevention of waste to avoid treating or cleaning up waste after it has been created;
2. Atom economy through new synthetic methods designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product;
3. Less hazardous chemical syntheses designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the environment;
4. Design of safer chemicals able to carry out the desired function while minimizing their toxicity;
5. Avoiding wherever possible or minimizing the use of auxiliary substances (e.g. solvents, separation agents, and others), and introducing safer solvents and auxiliaries that are innocuous when they have to be used;
6. Design for energy efficiency of chemical processes to minimize their environmental and economic impacts and if possible, to introduce synthetic methods to be conducted at ambient temperature and pressure;
7. Promotion of the use of renewable raw materials or feedstock instead of depleting ones whenever technically and economically practicable;
8. Reduce derivatives through minimizing or avoiding the use of blocking groups, protection/deprotection, and temporary modification of physical/chemical processes that require additional reagents and can generate waste;
9. Catalytic reagents as selective as possible;
10. Design for degradation of chemical products at the end of their function into innocuous degradation products not persisting in the environment;
11. The development of analytical methodologies needed to allow real-time analysis for pollution prevention, in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances; and
12. Inherently safer chemistry for accident prevention substances and the form of a substance used in a chemical process to be chosen to minimize the potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.

Source: "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice," Paul T. Anastas and John C. Warner. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.