Responsible Care is the international commitment of the chemical industry to strive towards continual improvements in the fields of health, safety and the environment. It is currently practiced in 52 countries, sharing a common commitment to advancing the safe and secure management of chemical products and processes.
Responsible Care was first introduced in North America in 1988. To gain the respect and confidence of society, the chemical industry intends to conform.
The work is pursued individually in every company that has joined the program by signing the Responsible Care commitment. The companies undertake to work continually on reducing the impact that production and use of their products has on health, safety and the environment. The Chemical Industries' Associations in Europe, America and Asia follow up and develop the program.
Responsible Care within Eka Chemicals
Eka Chemicals shall be a respected and caring member of local communities where it operates and shall fully implement responsible care worldwide.
The global chemical industry has launched a Responsible Care website - www.responsiblecare.org - which provides general information about Responsible Care (its history, coverage and objectives) as well as descriptions of member Responsible Care programmes and links to their status reports.
USA Risk Characterization Summary
As a member of the American Chemistry council (ACC) in the USA, Akzo Nobel is committed to an international program, the Global Product Strategy (GPS), which is designed to improve product stewardship actions and to increase public awareness and confidence that chemicals in commerce are safely managed throughout their lifecycle. An important part of the Akzo Nobel GPS program is completing risk characterizations for the chemicals it manufactures and imports, prioritizing chemical risks, recommending risk management actions where indicated, and making chemical health and safety information available to the public. [NOTE: The Akzo Nobel GPS includes a number of product regulatory compliance programs (e.g., product safety for Material Safety Data Sheets and labels) that have been effectively functioning for many years.]
The AN Risk Characterization process in the USA is a team effort within the company. We: (1) collect available health and safety information on the chemicals we manufacture and import, (2) evaluate the chemical/physical, human health and environmental hazards presented by our chemicals, (3) assess the human and environmental exposure to our chemicals, including customer use and disposal when this information is available, (4) assess the potential risks of potential harm to human health and the environment, and, (5) prioritize our chemicals according to the level of risk so that additional risk reduction actions can be recommended as needed.
One of the primary objectives of the AN Risk Characterization process is to identify those chemicals that present the highest risk and then to focus on ensuring that these chemicals are carefully managed to control these risks. Akzo Nobel reviews the type and degree of hazard in view of the chemical use as well as customer practices to decide whether a chemical should be considered a high priority chemical. Generally, Akzo Nobel uses the following factors in deciding whether a chemical should be considered a high priority: (1) a high hazard potential (acute or chronic), (2) a high exposure potential with respect to number of pounds manufactured or imported, or due to the type of customer application/use, or (3) a combination of these two factors.
When a chemical has been identified as a high priority chemical, Akzo Nobel will make publicly available a product stewardship summary for the chemical that generally presents the hazards, exposures, risks and recommended risk management actions that should be taken. After the evaluation of high priority chemicals has been completed, Akzo Nobel will address medium and low risk chemicals in the same type of process.