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The Responsible Care Program
The awareness towards Health, Safety and Environment is now
the central issue of policies of the chemical sector and of
operating companies: this has been concretized through the elaboration
and adoption of the "Responsible Care" Program.
This Program is the most important initiative undertaken by
chemistry to provide a positive answer to the above issues.
The chemical sector is aware of the significance of these issues
and of the need to operate for the best through the most innovative
industrial procedures, thus gaining the full ?right to operate
".
This initiative will be extended to all connected sectors, thus
standardizing procedures in the whole chemical trade. Responsible
Care is intended as a concrete model of organization and behavior,
effective and efficient, totally devoid of bureaucracy, minimizing
paper documentation, necessary, practical, useful, user-friendly.
Responsible Care is the basis on which any other relevant system,
rule and guideline is grafted, as it includes all these aspects.
For participants in the Responsible Care Program it will be
much easier to achieve the ISO 9000 or 14000 certification or
to work out their own Environmental Safety Management System.
Responsible Care helps companies from the organization viewpoint,
to rationalize and simplify working procedures, to work for
the best and in safety conditions, to minimize errors and omissions;
even without the serious reasons described above Responsible
Care would be a useful tool, nearly indispensable, for many
companies, particularly the smaller ones that are not in a position
to commit functions and staff to these specific activities.
Responsible Care is an important opportunity to show that voluntary
programs and self-evaluation are feasible and effective business
practices and that the whole sector intends and is going to
operate with strong responsibility towards Health, Safety, and
Environment, even in the absence of heavy interventions and
controls by authorities.
Responsible Care is based on a series of guidelines covering
the whole Health, Safety, Environment and Quality areas; on
the basis of these guidelines the Self-Evaluation Questionnaire,
the Improvement Plan, the Manuals and Guidelines have been originated,
through appropriate studies, by AssICC, in order to facilitate
and standardize the application of the program by the participating
companies.
The Responsible Care Program by AssICC has been worked out
on the basis of a model adopted at international level by ICCTA
(International Council of Chemical Trade Associations) and it
therefore meets the specific requirements of distributors and
traders, representing the logical continuation of the Responsible
Care Program by Federchimica; the two program are perfectly
compatible and synergically integrated.
The future of chemistry depends essentially on the success
of this initiative that in turn will be successful only through
the massive and convinced participation of all the subjects
involved in the sector.
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