We sell over 14,000 products. Some of these products can have an impact on health if they are mishandled, which is why we have policies in place to protect the health of our customers and employees. Our priorities are to assess and mitigate health risks, provide clear and transparent information on our products and offer assistance for their proper use.
We assess and mitigate impacts
In order to preserve the health of every person who comes into direct or indirect contact with our products, we have implemented several guidelines to govern their design and management:
- Our health policy.
- Our Safety Health Environment Quality Charter.
- Our directives that set out the requirements for bringing products to market, throughout the world.
In practical terms, this approach leads us to identify and assess the health risks of our products across their life cycle and then to develop new and ever more effective solutions. These could include removing certain components or replacing them with safer alternatives, for example.
Additionally, we invest continuously in an effort to comply with increasingly complex health protection regulations.
investing in INFORMATION AND PREVENTION
We provide clear and transparent information to our customers about the properties of our products, the impacts associated with their use and the applicable prevention and protection measures.
Each of our products has a specific label and a Safety Data Sheet (SDS). These fact sheets are prepared and kept up to date by our in-house network of Health, Safety and Environment experts. They summarize the potential risks associated with our products, as well as the necessary precautions for their use, handling and storage. The SDSs are available for consultation here.
Chemicals: The REACH Regulation
Since June 1, 2007, the EU regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) has made it mandatory to register, evaluate and authorize all chemicals made in or imported into the European Union in order to better protect human health and the environment from the risks potentially associated with chemicals through more accurate identification of the chemicals' intrinsic properties.
We fully support this approach and strive to contribute to a more sustainable development of the chemical industry in Europe. We pursue and develop our operations in compliance with this regulation, which can result in certain chemicals being withdrawn from the market.
