Introduction

Background and Objective

Increasingly, companies are facing the need to publish information on their HSE performance to communities, employees, the general public and other stakeholders. This is reflected in a number of major reviews of the issue, such as:

• the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/ SustainAbility report "Engaging Stakeholders",
• the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES)

and also in a number of regulatory approaches such as:

• the Directive 90/313/EEC (Freedom of Access to Environmental Information) requiring that any information relating to the environment and held by the authorities, is made available on request to the public,
• the voluntary Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) Regulation 1836/93 requiring the publication of an environmental statement that is verified by an independent verifier,
• the Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) 96/61/EC and the draft Directive on the control of emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) requiring to make emission data available to the public.

The chemical industry responded to the call for health, safety and environmental (HSE) information at an early stage with its Responsible Care programme. Responsible Care is the chemical industry’s own and unique initiative. It is a voluntary programme of action committing members of the chemical industry to continuous improvement in all aspects of HSE performance.

Openness is a vital part of Responsible Care and therefore communication of the performance improvement to customers, suppliers, local communities, regulators, employees, shareholders and the general public is a principal requirement of this commitment.

In 1993 CEFIC issued the "Guidelines on Environmental Reporting for the European Chemical Industry" in order to promote the publication of annual environmental reports by its members. The guidelines were well received and many CEFIC member companies have since published environmental reports at different levels (local, national, European, international).

But in order to communicate the achievements of the chemical industry at national and European level, the chemical industry needs a more comprehensive quantitative assessment of its HSE performance based upon common definitions. Quantitative indicators of performance are a means of achieving this objective.

Presently many European chemical industry federations publish Responsible Care Indicators of Performance. These take the form of aggregated HSE performance data from their country’s members and reflect the national achievements of the chemical industry. But the selected indicators vary from country to country according to national or local concerns and definitions. Therefore CEFIC decided to provide a reporting and monitoring framework that encompasses HSE data in one coherent scheme - the new "CEFIC Responsible Care HSE Reporting Guidelines".

This initiative will enable the future aggregation of data at European level, since all member federations will adhere to the 16 common Core Parameters and their definitions, whilst providing a basis for publishing data at site and company level.

Collation of comparable national data will enable CEFIC to monitor continual improvement and to benchmark performance. This will help to identify areas in need of collective support and additional guidance. Such transfer of sector best practice is a fundamental objective of Responsible Care.

Selection of Core Parameters

The choice of parameters on which to collect data was dictated by the need to satisfy two key requirements:

• they had to incorporate HSE data which operating sites are already collecting for a number of reasons; to comply with regulations; to help achieve performance/economic targets; to meet local needs. In order to accommodate the current individual company needs and practices, the new Guidelines concentrate on a consistent set of parameters, which will increase the effectiveness of reporting.
• there was a need to develop quantitative/qualitative information in relation to issues perceived as important by governmental bodies, legislators, politicians, the media, pressure groups and other influential bodies. The draft document of the European Environmental Pressure Indices Project was particularly useful in this respect. The new Guidelines concentrate on reporting data in a transparent way and in a format that is easily understandable by the interested audiences.

The existing CEFIC sources were: the currently used CEFIC Guidelines on Environmental Reporting (1993), the CEFIC Guidance Document on Safety & Health Performance Reporting (1995), the CEFIC Guidance for a National Core Set of Responsible Care Indicators (1997) and the Responsible Care Reports published by national chemical industry federations.

This document presents a comprehensive set of Core Parameters to be used as a basic reference by CEFIC member federations. This new guidance replaces all current reporting guidelines on environmental reporting and Responsible Care Performance Indicators. All federations are encouraged to develop their own reporting strategy, taking into account these Core Parameters in their national Responsible Care reports. Additional parameters reflecting national or local concerns should be added to this core set.

A major benefit of this approach will be a convergence of publications by member federations and new, consistent performance data presented in the annual CEFIC Responsible Care Report.

List of Core Parameters

Safety and occupational health

• Number of fatalities
• Lost time injuries frequency rate
• Occupational illness frequency rate

Environmental protection

• Hazardous waste for disposal
• Non-Hazardous waste for disposal
• Sulphur dioxide
• Nitrogen oxides
• Carbon dioxide and other global warming gases
• Volatile organic compounds
• Phosphorus compounds
• Nitrogen compounds
• Chemical oxygen demand
• Heavy metals
• Other substances that potentially impact human health or the environment
• Energy consumption and energy efficiency

Distribution

• Distribution incidents

These Guidelines do not include any reference to either Product Stewardship or the sector’s consumption of raw materials. Product Stewardship is a subject of ever increasing importance to the chemical sector and CEFIC is already engaged in looking at tools that will record its progress with this activity. Parameters other than the chosen 16 and considered relevant to HSE reporting, are listed in Appendix 12.

Reporting Process

Companies and sites are expected to report these 16 parameters as a minimum. These data can be used for internal and external HSE reports. A typical example of the style of such a report can be found in Appendix 13: this format is derived from the 1993 CEFIC Environmental Reporting Guidelines, mentioned above.

National federations will collect these data for aggregation at national level and for publication by CEFIC at European level with the exception of parameter 14, which is reported at company or site level only, and parameters 8 and 15 which will be taken from the VEEP reports (see below).

The publication of aggregated data is planned to be implemented stepwise (gradually adding parameters over a period of 5 years) as follows:

• 1998 : parameters 8 – 15
• 1999 : parameters 1 – 2
• 2000 : parameters 6 – 7 – 10 – 11 – 12
• 2001 : parameters 9 – 13 – 16
• 2002 : parameters 3 – 4 – 5

For most parameters CEFIC aggregated data will be 2 years in arrears at the date of publication.

CO₂ and Energy (VEEP Programme)

CEFIC endorses a global energy policy, which supports competitiveness, security of supplies and protection of the environment. In 1992 the European chemical industry embarked on a Voluntary Energy Efficiency Programme (VEEP) to provide yearly aggregated European data on fuel & power energy consumption and CO₂ emissions per unit of output. This already allows CEFIC to monitor and report on the energy consumption and efficiency of the chemical industry.

Environmental Burden

Most of the 16 Core Parameters require that emissions and discharges be expressed in terms of tonnes. Although such data is relatively straightforward to collect, it gives no real indication of the types of environmental effects that a substance may inflict or the potency of the substance to exert such effects. This is especially the case when evaluating substances in a particular environmental impact category.

Environmental burden is a quantitative way of weighting the potential environmental impact of different emissions in similar categories such that companies can:

• identify the most harmful emissions and prioritise them for reduction
• gain a more meaningful interpretation of the potential impact of its emissions
• promote a greater public appreciation of industry’s approach to reducing its emissions.

In order to address this issue, CEFIC offers for consideration that emission/discharge figures for Core Parameters 8 (Global Warming gases), 9 (Volatile organic compounds) and 13 (Heavy metals) are calculated using a formula which enables a meaningful aggregation of data. The calculation provides a figure for each compound or element that reflects their potential environmental impact relative to one another.
The calculation and the potency factors, offered for consideration, have been taken from the publication "Environmental Burden: The ICI Approach", ICI, UK (1996). They are listed in the Appendices 6, 7 and 9 which refer to the above mentioned Core Parameters 8, 9 and 13 respectively.

Future

The new guidelines will be reviewed after five years (in 2003). This will enable a broader picture of the European chemical industry’s performance to emerge.

The need for the chemical industry to respond to the challenge of sustainable development requires an examination of the social and economic aspects of the chosen parameters, in addition to the environmental bias of these Guidelines. This is going to be a continuing journey for which input from our stakeholders will be needed. Such a dialogue will be sought and initiatives will be taken to reflect the sector’s contribution to sustainable development. It is therefore expected that the envisaged revision of this set of parameters will address the sustainable development issues more comprehensively.