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Sustainability Report 2018

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Home > Reports > Sustainability Report 2018 > EHSS > Product Stewardship

PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP

A strong product stewardship program is critical to the success of our EHSS management and sustainability programs.

Over the years, SABIC has built strong product stewardship management practices and has a long-standing track record of success in complying with both global and national chemical regulations.  
 
Our success is built on maintaining information on the safety, health, and environmental hazards of our products and raw materials. New products and formulations go through a rigorous screening and approval process. We actively seek alternatives in cases where safe use cannot be guaranteed. We communicate product stewardship information so that products are managed and handled safely as intended. We seek to continuously improve our culture and processes. 

PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP AT SABIC TECHNOLOGY CENTER IN INDIA

The regulatory analysis team at SABIC Technology Centre in Bengaluru, India, supports global product stewardship testing requirements. 
 
This year, our experts applied their nearly two decades of experience to complete 32 compliance projects to meet the worldwide product safety regulatory requirements. Highlights included
 
  • Food contact compliance testing on the existing polymeric products to align with the US Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority, and other global testing protocols. 
  • Food contact exposure evaluation of chemical substances from developmental grades of polymers.
  • REACH EU chemical registration analytical support to sell SABIC products in Europe.
  • Physico-chemical studies according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) test guidelines.
  • Polymer registration according to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry guidelines.
  • Root cause investigation on product deviations affecting product safety.
  • Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling assessments of chemical substances.

PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCY

SABIC

SABIC Technology Center in Bengaluru, India, supports global product stewardship testing requirements.

Training embeds stewardship into our culture and promotes ownership, with defined roles and responsibilities for employees at each site.
 
This year, we launched our Product Stewardship and Manufacturing Center of Excellence initiative, which defines who is responsible for product stewardship activities. 
 
To complement the center of excellence, we began developing a new detailed product safety training curriculum for two levels of expertise suited to a broad group of specific company roles. In 2019, we will develop the training content and roll out the program for functional business employees. 

PRODUCT RISK DISCOVERY AND MANAGEMENT

At SABIC, chemical safety is of utmost importance; we have developed a robust approach to stay up to date on all chemicals-management risks that affect our business globally. This includes evaluating risks and mitigation opportunities at the earliest project stages of research and development (R&D), conducting comprehensive risk characterizations for our high-priority products to mitigate potential risks throughout the life cycle, and improving a strong regulatory compliance program.
 
This year, we greatly enhanced our ability to monitor the global regulatory environment through a new regulatory intelligence improvements and calendar project. The calendar alerts global Product Stewardship staff members to time-sensitive regulatory compliance tasks. To complement this, we instituted a uniform global standard for regulatory monitoring and for regulatory impact assessment to ensure that we have the necessary processes and accountability measures at each of our locations.
 
In collaboration with teams from Technology and Innovation, SABIC’s Global EHSS function launched a centralized process to coordinate EHSS and product stewardship reviews across R&D projects. Through this centralized process, our EHSS experts have screened 300 projects.
 
Beyond assessing R&D risk, we have set an ambitious goal to complete comprehensive risk characterizations for 50 high-priority products by 2021. Since launching this initiative in 2016, we have finished extensive risk characterizations for 35 products.

EHSS IN VALUE CHAIN COMMUNICATION

We take product safety responsibilities seriously, and have cultivated an open channel of communication across the value chain to ensure that our products are used safely and appropriately.

We diligently build a strong bridge of communications with customers to understand potential hazards and risk management practices. In 2017, we piloted a new communications protocol with key styrene and methanol customers in the United States as a part of our Responsible Care® value chain initiative. This year, we expanded this protocol for customer outreach on the priority chemicals butanol, MEA (monoethanolamine  ), and TEA (triethanolamine) in Europe, and methanol in India.

In addition to proactively communicating with customers on high-priority chemicals, we pride ourselves on responsiveness to customer product stewardship requests and inquiries. This year, we responded to 13,932 inquiries – a 10 percent increase on 2017.

As we endeavor to make communications seamless, we also work to enhance the SABIC website through a strategic initiative between our Product Stewardship, IT, and Global Communications teams.

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