Voluntary initiatives Responsible Care

Several voluntary industry initiatives, such as ACC s Responsible Care and NACD s Responsible Distribution Process (RDP), provide guidance on process safety management for chemical manufacturers and distributors. However, no voluntary industry initiatives list specific codes or requirements for reactive hazard management. 

The Guide to Process Safety is designed to help with implementation of the Responsible Care Process Safety Code (SOCMA, 1999). The guide presents voluntary, proactive initiatives for the continuous improvement of process safety performance. 

The political requirement within Europe, that the industry should be responsible for the assessment of the 30,000 substances currently on the market and their applications is in line with the voluntary commitment of responsible care by the chemicals industry. Implementation of this -commitment has so far failed because many users of chemical products have not complied with it. The REACH system proposed by the EU Commission would create a regulative framework for structuring responsibility and information flow along the supply chain, in a binding marmer for the first time. The commercial institutions should respond to this state initiative. 

Responsible Care is the chemicals industry s global voluntary initiative to improve health, safety, and environmental performance and to communicate with stakeholders about their products and services. Please see www.responsiblecare.org... 

Few will disagree that the Responsible Care program is one of the most recognized voluntary environmental initiatives launched by an industry sector. Many proponents acknowledge that Responsible Care has reduced releases to air, land, and water, and improved worker and community safety. While the social dimension was core to the original vision of Responsible Care , the program s impact on public trust has met with mixed reviews. On the economic front, Responsible Care is yet to be recognized as a business-driven initiative. 

J. Moffet and F. Bregha, The Responsible Care Program. In R. Gibson (Ed.), Voluntary Initiatives (Broadview Press, Toronto, 1999). 

J. Moffet, F. Bregha and M. Middelkoop, Responsible Care A Case Study of a Voluntary Environmental Initiative, in R. Gibson, ed., Voluntary Initiatives, Ch. 6, Broadview Press, Toronto, Canada, 1999. 

Responsible Care is the global chemical industry s environmental, health and safety (EHS) initiative to drive continuous improvement in performance. It achieves this objective by meeting and going beyond legislative and regulatory compliance, and by adopting cooperative and voluntary initiatives with government and other stakeholders. Responsible Care is both an ethic and a commitment and... 

An early mover in voluntary initiatives was that of Responsible Care begun in Canada in 1987 to develop the principles on which the chemical industry could base its product development from laboratory to disposal, to improve its health, safety and environmental performance (see Table 1). That was taken up by the International Council for Chemical Associations in 1991 and now covers 87 per cent of global chemical production in 42 countries. Mainly adopted by the larger multi-nationals, the Responsible Care concept needs to be extended to more small and medium sized enterprises [3],... 

Responsible Care is an initiative that originated in the chemicals industry in Canada in 1984 and was then further developed in the USA in 1988. Essentially, it is a voluntary industry action programme aiming to demonstrate improvements made in all aspects of performance. A key step is to involve all interested parties, including employees, local communities, suppliers and customers, in order to improve dialogue with a view to improving public perception of the issues and the industry s attempts to deal with them. 

In parallel with the laws and regulations described above, trade organizations and working groups have developed voluntary initiatives for product stewardship. Two of the best known are Responsible Care and the Nano Risk Framework. 

While Responsible Care as conceived is a voluntary program, the CMA, whose members control more than 90% of the basic chemical capacity in the United States and Canada, has made participation in this initiative a requisite for membership. Each CMA company, and each of its chemiced businesses, must subscribe to the principles of Responsible Care and is expected to participate in the development of programs. 

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