The petrochemical industry promotes the Responsible Care programme as a way to monitor its performance, but independent groups claim it is not powerful enough to be effective. A quarter of the industry are yet to sign on the line that matters.
Responsible Care has its origins in a time of political and public concern about safety within the industry. Most notably this arose from the Bhopal disaster in 1984, when almost 4,000 people in the Indian city were killed when a Union Carbide pesticide plant released tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas into the air – making for one of the world’s worst ever industrial disasters.
Bhopal resulted in the then CEO of Union Carbide asking the US national chemical association to adopt a campaign based on one already in use by Canadian companies.
Â
Today Responsible Care is a global initiative, although not all countries have signed up to it. Its stated aim is to ‘help our industry to operate safely, profitably and with due care for future generations’.
There are currently 53 national chemical associations who have signed up – the most recent being Russia in 2007 – meaning around 75% of global chemical production is now covered by the agreement.
National associations sign up through the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) which acts as ‘guardian’ of the scheme. Each national association runs its own programme. By its own admission the initiative is intentionally flexible so national associations can adapt it to suit their situation.
That said, there are common features, including a series of codes, guidance notes and checklists to help companies fulfill their commitment. The councils also develop their own indicators against which improvements in performance can be measured, and provide opportunities for companies to share views and exchange experiences on implementation.
Consideration is also given of how best to encourage all member companies to commit themselves to, and participate in the scheme.
In May 2003 the ICCA launched a review of the initiative as a result of what it described as substantial differences in programme design and implementation. This had led to a confusing and contradictory message about performance commitments within the industry.
This all happened at a time when more people were giving the industry their scrutiny. Governments and other stakeholders were also assessing how the industry managed the risks from chemical products, with lingering concerns about some areas of performance.
A Global Charter in 2006 was one of the main outcomes of that review process. This adopted some global Responsible Care core principles, including committing to advancing sustainable development and looking to continuously improve and report performance. Importantly, it also set out the provision of appropriate resources to effectively implement Responsible Care.
Members are now required to implement the charter and also sign ‘Declarations of Support’ at both company and national association level.
The ICCA also commissioned a sustainability study, which discovered that although the industry was viewed as technically competent and well-resourced, people thought it lacked transparency and was unwilling to engage in a discussion about its most serious issues. It was also perceived as powerful and thus lacking accountability.
More depressingly perhaps for the ICCA it emerged that although some people were aware of Responsible Care and viewed it as positive, they could not see how the initiative could address broader challenges such as communications and accountability.
It seems this view may be justified and in fact some of the base measures that national associations are required to adopt are seemingly not being met. Each association is required to respond to a questionnaire every two years to rate progress on implementation status levels.
The most recent was at the end of 2007 and the good news was that 81% of the elements of the fundamental features of the initiative had been fully implemented or were on their way there; 74% had published all the required codes/guidelines for implementation and 79% were making safety, health and environmental performance indicators available to the public. But it also found that there was ‘still work to be done to put liaison and communications with stakeholders fully in place’.
The initiative has often been described as little more than a public relations exercise to boost the image of an industry that has allegedly eschewed health and safety measures for local communities and in some cases employees.
Another criticism is that it does not set any tangible goals, particularly relating to reducing hazards, as it is essentially voluntary.
In September 2007 two academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the New York Stern School of Business published a critique of Responsible Care in a paper entitled ‘Industry Self-Regulation Without Sanctions’.
This set out to address the economic argument as to whether these kinds of initiatives could replace proper regulation. It concluded that “effective industry self-regulation is difficult to maintain without explicit sanctions” and that the Responsible Care codes “set standards for inputs but not for outputs.”
The paper stated: “They outline broad environmental objectives for firms, require that the firm perform certain functions, and employ certain specialised individuals, but they do not specify what output levels will be achieved.”
By way of example, the pollution prevention code in the initiatives requires companies to implement “ongoing reduction of wastes and releases, giving preference first to source reduction, second to recycle/reuse, and third to treatment” – but the level of reduction is not specified.
The academics said firms could thus use their discretion in setting the required goals and how they achieve them. They also noted that for the chemical industry self-regulation must be viewed against a background of public mistrust of the sector (be that justified or not).
Meanwhile, the US Community Right to Know Association (CRKA) which focuses on environmental and public health concerns has said nothing in Responsible Care “commits any (US) facility to measurable goals, timelines or external validation for reducing chemical hazards” and that without these basic elements, the initiative lacks accountability and credibility.
It says participating companies do little more than comply with current (US) environmental laws and performance metrics are based almost entirely on reporting requirements of existing federal legislation. “Chemical industry publications tout the effectiveness of Responsible Care yet basic delivery is often poor,” it says.
It also takes issue with the requirement that member companies must engage in community dialogue and the recommendation that facilities form Community Advisory Panels (CAPs).
It said while some 400 US companies had done so these panels were limited by design because they had hand-picked memberships, carefully control contact and participation by outside groups and non-members, can be shut down at any time by the companies “they ostensibly monitor, have no legally binding access to measurements and hard data and no assured mechanism to obtain credible, independent third-party audits”.
They also cannot make any decisions and operate “without measurable company goals or timelines to reduce chemical hazards, have no obligation to operate with public meeting notices and minutes; have no means to evaluate actual safety and environmental performance and operate under management codes that contain only broad, vague language.”
The CRKA also referred to a recent survey by the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union which indicated Responsible Care had little impact on the majority of the world’s chemical workers, with 35% of union employees contacted not even aware of the programme and most unions that were sceptical about its value.
Another criticism of the scheme came from California’s McMaster University Engineering Department last September. It concluded Responsible Care compliance was not properly enforced, sanctions for non-compliance were not delivered and firms were unaware of the business case for it.
It said the initiative also lacked “proper incentives to motivate firms to comply with all the codes of conduct’ leading to the use of the system ‘for public relations purposes” and “greenwash”.
But it did report some progress and acknowledged the industry had been forthcoming in its critical evaluation of its environmental performance and dedicated itself to improvement. That said, while the industry is open to criticism, the department said it still required “more improvement in implementing recommendations and monitoring its progress”.
It is hard to see how the industry will fail to improve in this area, not least given the fact that the environmental lobby (if only that) is now firmly at the top of the public agenda.
The ICCA said in the 2007 status report that it wanted to spread the implementation of Responsible Care as broadly as possible to help the industry ‘demonstrate how its health, safety and environmental performance has improved over the years, and to develop policies for further improvement’.
It also claimed the initiative had “driven a transformation in the way that companies operate: from being secretive and defensive about their activities, to being more open, honest and actively seeking the dialogue and partnerships with stakeholders.”
Whether that is the case remains to be seen, although the argument for more realistic sanctions for non-imposition of some of the initiative’s measures does appear justified if only to remove the PR perception from the initiative.
