Protecting Human Safety and Health

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Health and products

Total sells several thousand different products, some of which may have health impacts on the people who handle or use them (e.g., haulage contractors, users, processors, consumers). Our policy calls for assessing and mitigating those impacts, providing information and ensuring complete transparency.

Assessing and mitigating the impact of our products

To protect the health of people in contact with our products, we identify and assess their impacts on health across the product life cycle. This approach helps us to develop a continuous stream of products offering superior performance in terms of their health impacts. A few examples:

Total subsidiary Bostik has developed a line of water-based adhesives, Tarbicol CL, to substitute for urea-formaldehyde adhesives. The line has been awarded our in-house Total Ecosolutions label. Formaldehyde is classified as a carcinogen under European Union regulations. These adhesives also emit lower levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) than their urea-formaldehyde counterparts.
Our solar energy business does not and will not use cadmium telluride, a semi-conductor material that can be used to in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells. We are not convinced that there is sufficient proof that the material is non-toxic.

Moreover, we pay very careful attention to the treatment of waste generated by our products.

Reducing, recycling and recovering our waste

Spotlight on the EU’s REACH regulation

The EU regulation on the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) took effect on June 1, 2007, creating an obligation to register, evaluate an authorize all chemicals made in or imported into the European Union. The regulation aims to better protect human health and the environment from the risks potentially associated with chemicals.

The mandatory registration process came into force on June 1, 2008. However, to give manufacturers time to compile the registration dossiers while continuing to make their products, the regulation provided a transition — or pre-registration — period for certain substances. Total filed nearly 5,000 pre-registrations during this preliminary phase, which ended on December 1, 2008.

The registration phase per se will now proceed through 2018 in accordance with a defined timetable. At the same time, the authorization process, which could result in certain chemicals being withdrawn from the market, is now in full swing.

Transparent information for users

Information concerning the properties of our products is presented in Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). These fact sheets are prepared and kept up to date by an in-house network of Health, Safety and Environment experts. The MSDS summarize the potential hazards of our products, as well as the necessary precautions for their use, handling and storage. They are available on the internet and via our intranet site.

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