A labour-management agreement was signed in Montreal, Canada in October 1998 representing an important step towards fuller involvement of trade unions in Responsible Care. In the agreement, chlorine manufacturers and global trade unions commit to "environmentally sustainable production" developed "in conjunction with the promotion of long-term employment opportunities." The Montreal statement anticipates a continuing process of consultation between trade unions and chlorine producers with various interest groups, including the environment movement. The Montreal participants explored possible areas of co-operative action on the implementation and effectiveness of Responsible Care and agreed to develop methods for fuller employee involvement. The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) signed on behalf of the unions.

Fifteen European federations now regularly publish their Responsible Care HS&E results. Belgium, The Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, The Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK all publish an annual performance report which catalogues the huge range of Responsible Care achievements.

CEFIC continued with efforts towards fulfilling industry's Responsible Care promise to share HS&E performance with all stakeholders and to encourage more consistent reporting of HS&E issues by agreeing a framework of common definitions. The publication Responsible Care - Health, Safety and Environmental Reporting Guidelines draws on a wealth of best practice and experience of member companies, federations and external advisers. CEFIC's target is to publish data for 16 core parameters by 21 member federations by the year 2002. The data will be aggregated and published at European level. Importantly, occupational health and safety will be reported in addition to the existing environmental data which means that the improvement in the chemical sector's HS&E performance can be openly judged.

Product Stewardship is acknowledged to be one of the toughest aspects of Responsible Care to implement. CEFIC tackled the issue head on at its 1998 workshop which was dedicated to the subject, and aimed specifically at the business manager. Customers and suppliers provided valuable input, and case histories and syndicate sessions offered practical examples for delegates. The message was Product Stewardship is not an option, it’s a necessity. A new brochure, Product Stewardship - Responsible Care for Business, outlines just why Product Stewardship is so important and provides encouragement for its implementation.

In France large companies provide Responsible Care advisors to smaller companies (SMEs) while leaving them fully responsible for the implementation of the initiative. These advisors are organised in a network with the support of 20 regional organisations ("Chambres syndicales géographiques") which are strategically located to cover all UIC (the French Federation) member sites.

The fourth environmental annual report of FEDERCHIMICA, the Italian federation, includes a "greener" chemistry section with almost 50 examples of new products and processes with a lower environmental impact.

Responsible Care compliance is increasing at about 8-10% per year, and with the first seven codes is now averaging close to 80%. The remaining one, Product Stewardship, is running at around 50% and PACIA is targeting near full compliance for 1999/2000. The database on Code Compliance has been used to develop a ranking table, listing members in order of their average compliance. Providing the data as feedback to company chief executives, along with a list of the top 15 companies for each of the eight codes, has proved useful, and a good stimulus to even greater efforts.

Integrated systems: PACIA has developed and published comprehensive guidelines for the integration of ISO 14001 and ISO 9000 management systems with the Responsible Care commitment. Special emphasis has been placed in these guidelines on support for small to medium sized enterprises. The analysis demonstrated that some 60% of the elements of Responsible Care contribute directly to compliance with ISO 14001.

Product Stewardship in the community: PACIA participates in an innovative program of Household Chemical Collection days, with active support from representatives of member companies. Individual collection days assist residents of a local area to dispose of their unwanted chemicals like paint, swimming pool chemicals, motor oil, etc, safely and responsibly.

Reliable back-up: Material Safety Data Sheets are required by law for every hazardous substance provided to Australian workplaces by manufacturers, importers and suppliers. PACIA led the development of a database whereby more than 100,000 MSDS are now available on CD-Rom. The Chemsafe MSDS database presents information as provided by product suppliers in a standard format and is designed to meet the needs of regulators and non-government users alike.

About 55% of the 1500 verification team findings from CCPA’s first round of Responsible Care verifications are of the "extra mile" or commendation variety. These reports are made by a consensus process involving 2 industry experts and 2 public advocates.

Examples of performance improvements include:

Stakeholder dialogue: The Japan Responsible Care Council has held meetings at nine major petrochemical complexes. Participants included local government, labor unions and the media. In November 1998 in Tokyo, JRCC had its first successful dialogue meeting with end-users/consumers on the theme "Coexistence in Society and Chemicals". Around 280 people took part including the representatives from Japan Consumers’ Co-operative Union, other consumers’ NGOs, labour unions and academia. Introductory lectures were followed by panel discussions on topics including what kind of information consumers wanted from chemical companies, and risk communication. Further events are planned aimed at establishing an ongoing communication process with consumers.

Trades union assistance: The Japanese Federation of Chemical Workers Unions is keen to actively participate in the Responsible Care initiative and cooperate with management on improving health, safety and the environment.

Argentina help for Uruguay

The Argentinian association CIQyP has provided advice and technical support to Uruguay’s ASIQUR to help it lauch Responsible Care in 1998, and will provide ongoing assistance with plans to issue codes of management practice and evaluations in two years’ time.

The following is an extract from a 'testimonial' from New Zealand’s Minister for the Environment, Simon Upton. It was written for the 1998 edition of NZCIC’s Responsible Care Manager's Handbook.

"All New Zealanders appreciate that the quality of our environment makes an important contribution to our way of life. Not only do we value high environmental quality in our daily lives, but maintaining our environment is also a significant competitive advantage for a country which depends on trade based largely on natural resources and tourism for its economic well-being.

The Responsible Care program provides organisations and businesses concerned about the safe handling of hazardous substances with the means of meeting their legal and moral obligations. At this stage in the evolution of the New Zealand’s health safety and environmental legislation, the continued development of this handbook is of major significance. I commend this Responsible Care program to all businesses and organisations seeking a means to meet their safety, health and environmental objectives."

Responsible Care audits: NZCIC developed the Premises Inspection and Certification (PRINCE) program as a means of improving HS&E performance in industries which routinely handle hazardous substances. Companies undergo a rigorous independent audit by technical experts, to determine compliance with the legal and moral obligations of a "good employer", and a responsible member of the local community.

performance goals as an obligation of participation in the initiative. Responsible Care should also include the concepts of sustainability, and highlight the chemical industry's benefit to society. The BCRC believes that setting company goals will drive performance improvement which is pivotal to earning public trust.

Recommendations call upon members and Partners to set and report their own performance improvement goals, based on guidelines developed by the CMA. CMA will evaluate possible code changes, consider a second phase of management systems verification, review the current self-evaluation process and evaluate the Public Advisory Panel's role.

Community Website: To help members at a local level, CMA is setting up a community website. The association is developing a template which will enable each of its member company’s chemical manufacturing sites-around 1,700 in all - to provide vital information on their operations to neighbours. The site also provides community

residents with a means of directing inquires and suggestions directly to local plant management, which will further advance the dialogue process at local plant community level.

Teaching employees to identify hazards is the first step in preventing them. One tool for hazard identification is near miss reporting which acts as a valuable tool for preventing future accidents. In the US, Air Products has taken hazard recognition one step further by developing and implementing an Accident Predictive Technique (APT). Employees use the APT process to identify and document potentially unsafe acts and conditions before a near miss or accident occurs. They are empowered to immediately correct these conditions. One of the benefits of using APT is that it keeps employee safety awareness high and has resulted in lower safety incident rates.
Air Products sees APT as an important tool for actively advancing safety efforts.

Pollution Prevention - a technical project to eliminate the use of clays for product purification, and the subsequent problem of disposal of a toxic hazardous waste, resulted in a saving of $400,000/year to the business unit.

Process Safety - The storage of ethylene oxide, and propylene oxide in both plants presents a continuing hazard. All of the Responsible Care hazard reviews, verifying as-built drawings, and subsequent mechanical integrity reviews have improved operating reliability, have dramatically increased the comfort zone of emergency responders and have reduced hazard insurance premiums by 17%.

Employee Health and Safety - An active employee safety program, coupled with a detailed industrial hygiene program, has resulted in a 2/3 reduction of Workmen’s Compensation Insurance premiums. This means a healthier employee work force, and more days worked.

Transportation - Akzo Nobel’s rapid and professional response to a train derailment in Sweden that involved a company ethylene oxide tank car was highly praised by government officials and emergency responders. The Transportation Routing Hazard Assessment Computer Program, that looks at the delivery of such hazardous products such as ethylene oxide to the plant has likewise increased the confidence of all the nearby and affected communities.

Product Stewardship - Akzo Nobel gave equipment to remove the solvent vehicle to a customer of its organo clay specialty products so he could reduce his hazardous waste emission. It assisted another customer to register a new oil field recovery surfactant which eliminated use of a heavy-metal cross linked polymer.

At Bayer’s Uerdingen production site in Germany, employees of the site manager’s office organised and led special scientific projects for children from local nursery and elementary schools. In both years that the project has been held, the Bayer employees found that simple examples from everyday life, like the manufacture of Lego or toothpaste, are enough to arouse the children’s interest in science. Several thousand children visited the Uerdingen laboratories over the period. In the US, Bayer continues a campaign begun in the early 1990s, Making Science Make Sense, which supports hands-on science programs and a national public education campaign promoting science literacy. Over 20 Bayer sites internationally are involved in a science education initiative.

Close links with the local community have been developed by CXY’s Bruderheim, Alberta plant in Canada leading to an ongoing program of outreach activities. For example, when CXY upgraded its computer system in early 1998, it found the perfect home for the surplus machines by donating them to local schools. For the schools, where resources were tight, it meant new opportunities for the children to get computer experience. CXY’s initiative - and subsequent publicity in the local press and on cable television - sparked other companies to follow suit. And when other CXY sites upgrade, their old equipment is also being donated to local schools. A letter from Lamont Elementary School to CXY noted: "Your thoughtful and generous gift to our students is an excellent example of business community members taking an interest in our students and making a difference!"

Degussa AG has set up a working party, Responsible Care - Transport Safety, which is tasked with drawing up inter-plant transport safety recommendations. The transport department trained 219 people on hazardous goods and 40 on load safety in 1997. A new Degussa emergency service takes calls in German, English, French and Spanish around the clock. The German translation is immediately passed to Degussa’s fire service in Wesseling which in turn immediately implements the necessary initial measures. All containers transporting hazardous goods are marked with the emergency number.

Eastman Chemical actively promotes Responsible Care in the Asia Pacific region. Since investing in a new plant in Malaysia, it now provides Material Safety Data Sheets in the local language, Bahasa Melayu, for all products sold into the country. Together with its prime contractor Foster-Wheeler Eastern, Eastman implemented construction safety programs and completed construction of its Kuantan plant without a lost workday injury while working more than 1.7 million hours. Plant employees formed part of the Chemical Industries Council of Malaysia committee which developed the Pollution Prevention Code. And the company is a key sponsor of the Malaysian Nature Society of Pahang Nature Camp which helps educate children on the importance of protecting and preserving the environment. In Singapore, distributors of Eastman products from 12 countries were invited to briefings on Eastman’s HS&E policies including Responsible Care during the first Asia Pacific Distributor/Contract Representatives training seminar. During construction of its Singapore plant, Eastman and its prime contractor, JGC, accumulated over 3.5 million hours without a lost workday injury.

US firm Eli Lilly and Co is one of a handful of pharmaceutical companies with an active Responsible Care program. Work on chemical process development has focused on minimising the adverse effects on the environment. For example, in the production of biosynthetic human insulin, 99% of solvents are recovered, reused or treated. And the company reduced all wastes from the manufacturing process of its new osteoporosis drug Evista by 70%. Production stages were redesigned to eliminate distillation processes, greatly reducing the emissions potential for solvents used in the process. External recognition of Lilly’s achievement came with the award of the 1995 Indiana Governors Award for Excellence in Pollution Prevention. In the field of public outreach, the Lilly Technology Center in the west Indianapolis neighbourhood sponsors a program called Great Things at Work. It co-ordinates community involvement efforts of Lilly employees in projects such as neighbourhood clean-ups, food and clothing drives for the needy, and work with local community centres.

Lilly has joined with 3 other Responsible Care companies in Indianapolis to form a group called ‘Indy Partners for Responsible Care’. That in turn led to the setting up of a wider group - not just CMA members - called ‘Industry Partners for Safety Awareness’ which was organised to coordinate the local Risk Management Plan implementation.

Together with the German Agency for Technical and Economic Cooperation (GTZ) and the Philippine Coconut Authority, Henkel provides assistance to coconut farmers on Mindanao, the Philippines second largest island.

The farmers have been advised and given help to set up cooperatives, and to build equipment such as copra dryers. Previously, the copra had been dried on outdoor racks exposed to rain and dew which resulted in mould and mildew. Simple kilns for drying are an effective solution. GTZ and Henkel have helped at least five cooperatives build 13 copra dryers which are fired with charcoal prepared from coconut shells.

Herdillia Chemical’s Responsible Care efforts have been acknowledged by government and chemical industry associations, the most recent being an award from ICMA for Excellence in Management of HS&E. Various schemes successfully implemented by the company include process efficiency improvements through minimising by-product formation, reducing energy use and increase capacity utilisation. Recovery of value added products from waste streams include recovery of alpha methyl styrene and acetophenone from phenol waste streams.

And outreach efforts are on the increase. Environmental awareness training programs have been held for industry associations, school teachers and students, local authorities, truck and tanker drivers, traffic police, local fire brigade, medical staff, journalists and interested businesses. Herdillia has also been actively involved in supporting the local and district authorities on emergency situations such as spillages and accidents. Responsible Care has helped instil a high level of self motivation among employees in addressing HS&E issues.

ICI Polyurethanes’ systems house at Minhang, Shanghai, is ICI’s first wholly-owned investment in China.
It comprises a state-of-the-art polyol blending plant and service centre. Before work started, ICI was advised by the local authorities that at least one fatality could be expected, based on statistics from about 20,000 construction projects in the city each year.

It became ICI’s highest priority to ensure that this did not happen, and a highly disciplined HSE education and management system was implemented. Key components included: contractors’ employee training programme; appointment of contractor’s site safety engineers; Personal Protective Equipment programme; safety inspection and auditing. The project was started in February 1995 and at the peak of construction 218 workers were employed and a total of about 400,000 man-hours worked. When the project was completed in May 1996, there were no reportable or classified injuries, and only four minor injuries requiring first aid.

Schering has introduced an integrated safety, environmental protection and quality management training program that it is expanding to its operations worldwide. Practical training seminars are function- and job-related and encourage dialogue; teamwork has priority over lectures. Responsible Care features in every seminar. Together, participants consider, discuss and devise methods for every individual to promote safety, environmental protection and quality management in their job. Training at Schering is part of a system which establishes, tests and builds on goals of personal responsibility. It has been set up as a flexible program so that the subjects being addressed can be developed further.

In 1997 Shell International Chemicals (SIC) completed a project with the non profit-making German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ) and the government of Mauritania to remove and safely dispose of 186,000 litres of obsolete dieldrin insecticide and some 1,5000 contaminated storage drums from sites around Mauritania, North West Africa. The dieldrin was provided by aid agencies as a strategic stock for the control of locusts in the 1960s and ‘70s. The licence to use the material was later withdrawn when newer products became available, but the stocks remained. With time, the stores posed a potential threat to the environment and communities. As makers of the dieldrin, Shell took responsibility under its commitment to Product Stewardship to help in the disposal. SIC provided technical advice, assistance and training, and aid for the transport and high-temperature incineration in the Netherlands. Further projects are underway with the intention of disposing of all unwanted dieldrin stocks. (Source: The Shell Report, 1998)

Wacker Chemie needed to increase capacity for vinyl acetate monomer and had identified a bottleneck in the manufacturing process involving the distillation columns. It invested in two new columns for the distillation plant. The first, a pre-dewatering column, can remove a third of the process water which forms in the reactor. Heat from the reactor outlet gas is used directly for this. The second is an azeotropic distillation column that