Sustainability / Social Report / Responsibility to Customers and Product Safety Chemical and Product Safety
Basic Approach
In line with its Basic Policies for Responsible Care, the Daicel Group strives to ensure the safety of its products and promote continuous improvement in product stewardship* across its entire supply chain. At the same time, we practice chemicals management with consideration for risks that arise throughout the product life cycle, from development, manufactureing, distribution, and use to disposal, and recycling. We are committed to disclosing the information required for properly handling chemical substances both inside and outside the Group.
*Product stewardship is an initiative for minimizing the impact of chemical substances on human health, safety, and the environment throughout the entire value chain related to the life cycle of a chemical product, encompassing its development, manufacture, distribution, use, disposal, and recycling.
Promotion System
Under the Responsible Care (“RC”) Promotion System, spearheaded by the RC Council, the Daicel Group strives to ensure chemical and product safety throughout the process of development, manufacturing, distribution, use, disposal, and recycling of chemical products. We practice proper chemical substance management by implementing the Total Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Assessment System as a means for evaluating risks associated with chemical substances in regard to health, safety, and the environment. Chemical substances subject to risk assessment include existing products that have undergone production process or production equipment changes, as well as new products.
Chemical Substance Management
Initiatives to Maintain Compliance with International Chemical Regulations
The Daicel Group not only complies with domestic regulations pertaining to the management of chemical products but also maintains compliance with the chemical regulations enforced in each country in Europe, the U.S., Asia-Pacific, and other regions by utilizing search databases for domestic and international laws to obtain the latest information on revisions to laws and regulatory trends in each country.
In May 2018, Daicel completed all registrations of its products designated under the European Union’s REACH*, as planned, in compliance with regulatory timelines specified by the regulations based on the volume of substances being manufactured or imported.
*REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) is a regulation that mandates that producers and importers must register their chemical products with the European Union conduct safety assessments, control permits for their use and restrict their use.
Consolidated Management of Chemical Information
The Daicel Group creates SDS* and labels to ensure that all of its products are handled safely and securely, and it provides timely information to customers, and conducts risk assessments of the chemical substances in its products.
Using its unique chemical information management data bank called D-CLik, the company has unified information on raw materials, intermediates, and finished products with regard to their toxicity, hazardous properties, and relevant regulations. As for the data on D-CLik, we not only register new chemical substances but also provide occasional updates by collecting monthly safety test reports and other relevant documents from the entire company and submitting them to the administration departments.
*The Safety Data Sheet is a document providing information on the properties and safety of chemical substances, and instructions about their handling.
Provision of Chemical Information
The Daicel Group provides the following information on chemical substances to ensure that customers can use its products with a sense of safety and security.
Scroll left or right
| Information disclosed via the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) |
|
|---|---|
| Information disclosed via GPS/JIPS*2 activities |
|
| Information disclosed via chemSHERPA*3 |
|
- *1GHS stands for Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, which provides a globally standardized set of rules regarding chemical categories and the presentation of SDS information for hazardous properties of chemical substances, as well as precautions for their handling.
- *2GPS/JIPS stands for Global Product Strategy/Japan Initiative of Product Stewardship, and it concerns the voluntary actions of the chemical industry promoted by Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA) and is based on the chemical management strategy of the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA). Through these actions, the industry conducts risk assessments of chemical products, creates safety summaries to easily explain results to people outside the industry, and makes these summaries publicly available on JCIA’s “Portal Site for Chemical Substance Risk Assessment Support.”
- *3chemSHERPA is a scheme that aims to ensure the appropriate management of the content of chemical products while communicating information regarding their ingredients throughout supply chains based on a unified list.
The Act on the Evaluation of Chemical Substances and Regulation of Their Manufacture, etc. (Chemical Substances Control Act) was revised, and the designated chemical substances subject to the SDS system were replaced in April 2023. In addition, a partial revision of the enforcement ordinance of the Industrial Safety and Health Act (ISHA) was promulgated in May 2022, and substances subject to required labeling, SDS, etc. and notification will be added every year from FY2024/3. Prior to the enforcement of these acts, the Daicel Group’s SDS was updated to include substances subject to revision by the Chemical Substances Control Act, and substances that are candidates until the enforcement of the ISHA in FY2025/3.
In-House Training and Education
To ensure appropriate management of chemical substances, the Daicel Group regularly provides all employees who handle chemical substances with educational programs about the hazardous properties of chemical substances and appropriate methods for handling them as well as the domestic and overseas laws and regulations governing them.
Particularly with respect to domestic and overseas laws and regulations, we have assigned chemical product management supervisors and workers in each business division and Group company who gather four times a year to exchange information, which is undertaken in two parts. In the first part, participants share information and discuss topics such as chemical product regulations in Japan and overseas along with the latest information and trends related to industry groups, and in the second part, topics such as regulatory trends and internal management systems that are focused on conveying information about chemicals are discussed. In FY2023/3, the meetings were attended by a total of 280 division heads and relevant staff.
Information on toxicity, hazardous properties, and related regulations for all chemical substances and products handled by Daicel are compiled in a list in the chemical substances safety assessment that is conducted as part of the Total EHS Assessments. Based on this list, we consider measures for mitigating the risks of hazardous properties and incorporate them into work procedures. In addition, we ensure all employees handling chemical substances are acquainted with this information.
Voluntary Efforts Concerning Chemical Substances
When developing new plans* under the Total EHS Assessment System, the Daicel Group conducts advance assessments of all chemical substances handled through its business with regard to the risks and toxicity they may pose in order to prevent people, equipment, and the environment from being affected by its chemical substances.
■Prohibited substances
Chemical substances whose risk or toxicity renders their manufacture or use illegal or subject to particularly severe restrictions. The Daicel Group prohibits the manufacture and use of these substances.
■Substances prohibited in principle
Chemical substances whose manufacture or use is severely restricted (must obtain permission, file notifications, take safety measures, etc.). In principle, the Daicel Group prohibits the manufacture and use of these substances and considers replacing them with alternative substances at the R&D stage. When the manufacture or use of these substances cannot be avoided, we determined the viability of such use following deliberation by the Corporate Total EHS Assessment Committee based on information such as risks, toxicity, amount produced, amount used, applications, purposes, exposure severity, and risk countermeasures for people's health and the environment.
We systematically manage substances of concern due to their risks or toxicity through the Total EHS Assessment System.
In FY2023/3, we conducted risk assessments for all chemical substances used in our existing products.
*This includes expanded applications for existing products as well as changes to product standards, manufacturing methods, and raw materials.
Our Philosophy on Animal Experimentation in Toxicity Testing
Laws and regulations require hazard assessments be conducted as part of product development and appropriate product management control. As a general rule, the Daicel Group conducts toxicity testing without the use of animals.
When animal experimentation cannot be avoided, we outsource to testing organizations that are in compliance with the 3Rs* (a set of international principles for conducting animal experiments properly in accordance with animal welfare principles) and that have policies and certifications regarding the careful treatment of animals.
*A set of internationally established principles that seeks to ensure animal experimentation is conducted properly and that includes guidelines for the feeding and storage of animals used in experiments. The 3Rs refer to the principles of (1) alleviating animal suffering (Refinement), (2) reducing the number of animals used (Reduction), and (3) using alternative means of experimentation that do not involve the use of animals (Replacement).