Reputation, chemical industry

Having attained almost twenty years of industrial e experience at BP and Yorkshire Chemicals, Mike Lancaster moved to the University of York. The author of many articles on Green Chemistry, he was the manager of the Royal Society of Chemistry s Green Chemistry Network (www.chemsoc.org/gcn) from 1998-2002. He is now Chemical Industry Reputation Manager at the Chemical Industries Association. 

The public was outraged. It did not matter whether the pollution came from a chemical factory, power utilities, mines, petroleum, automobiles, or semiconductors the chemical industry s reputation was in free-fall. In 1990, the U.S. Congress established the Super Fund, requiring industry to pay for cleaning up hazardous waste. Major chemical manufacturers banded together in a voluntary effort to reduce factory emissions to almost zero and to police themselves. At the opposite extreme, some environmentalists called for the elimination of all toxic substances. 

The chemical industry s efforts to forge an international reputation as a responsible corporate citizen have been severely damaged by publication on the internet of an archive of confidential industry documents. The publisher, the Environmental Working Group, claims that the archive shows how the industry spins, distorts and twists the facts on the safety and environmental impact of its products. 

The deviation scenarios found in the previous step of the risk analysis must be assessed in terms of risk, which consists of assigning a level of severity and probability of occurrence to each scenario. This assessment is qualitative or semi-quantitative, but rarely quantitative, since a quantitative assessment requires a statistical database on failure frequency, which is difficult to obtain for the fine chemicals industry with such a huge diversity of processes. The severity is clearly linked to the consequences of the scenario or to the extent of possible damage. It may be assessed using different points of view, such as the impact on humans, the environment, property, the business continuity, or the company s reputation. Table 1.4 gives an example of such a set of criteria. In order to allow for a correct assessment, it is essential to describe the scenarios with all their consequences. This is often a demanding task for the team, which must interpret the available data in order to work out the consequences of a scenario, together with its chain of events. 

More and more chemical companies do recognize the fact that their image, their reputation, plays a very important role in successful business. A proper image of the company is necessary to ensure public support for its activities. A study done in the United States showed that only the tobacco industry and the nuclear energy sector had a worse reputation than the chemical industry. The situation in Europe is probably not very much different. On the other hand, process intensification, deeply anchored in the philosophy of sustainable development, in safe and environmentally friendly processing, presents perhaps the simplest, the most obvious key to the improved image of the chemical industry. 

Finally, as a consequence of trans-European collaboration and policy coalitions, voluntary standards on safety and the environment diffused throughout the new member states. One of the main objectives of CEFIC was to promote not only EU legislation but also Responsible Care as another mechanism to level the regulatory playing field in Europe, to promote a culture of safety and corporate responsibility, and to protect the reputation of the European chemical industry. Table 15.2 presents the growths of Responsible Care participation by chemical enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe. 

Initial Observation Hard and Soft Opportunities. The chemical industry is very familiar with cost savings related to environmental performance improvement. Sustainability offers many similar cost minimization opportunities. Damaged reputation has long been something to avoid, and it can easily be associated with top line performance. Companies are now beginning to appreciate the upside value of company reputation - and that sustainability performance can drive this intangible value. 

A number of concerns of established repute are now energetically developing the fine chemical industry. The processes of manufacture and purification call for the services of highly trained chemists, of whom the supply will certainly be forthcoming as the demand for them increases. 

In the event, it was engineers laying a new sewage system rather than Faraday s experiments with chlorine that brought improvement. Chemical industry has since acquired a reputation for polluting, and the pharmaceutical industry for profiteering. 

Note. Before accepting Montedison invitation, I received a very confidential report on Montedison stams, written by a large and most reputable Erench chemical industry. The report was so negative that rmfoitunately I dismissed it as obviously incorrect . 

In October of 1949 Horlein sent a letter to Richard Kuhn to discuss the Willstatter autobiography. A number of passages, complained Horlein, were inaccurate and potentially damaging to the reputations of Bayer and the chemical industry. The first concerned two pharmaceuticals for which Willstatter had partially held the patent, Willstatter complained in his memoirs that in the 1920s Bayer had prematurely removed the drug Voluntal from the market in favor of other, less effective sleeping aids. Bayer had... 

In the chemical industry, one large manufacturer I investigated provides its customers and carriers with guidelines which they must follow. It audits its carriers to ensure that they have adequate safety systems. Carriers who don t measure up don t get its business. The firm also runs a small safety consultancy business and sells its services to other firms. Among those buying its services are its own suppliers, carriers, customers and even a competitor. In this way safety pays not only for those doing business with this chemical manufacturer, but in a very direct way for the firm itself There is no legislative requirement that this chemical manufacturer impose safety requirements on those with whom it does business. There is, however, a question of reputation. The company prides itself on its own safety achievements and believes that if its chemicals are involved in accidents of any sort its own reputation is tarnished. 

---