Safety, Health and Environment - Responsible Care Audit

ESAD

Within the framework of Responsible Care and Responsible Distribution, representatives from the chemical producers and distributors have jointly developed the European Single Assessment Document (ESAD).

It is an objective tool which allows chemical distributors to regularly evaluate and improve their safety, health and environmental performance.

Solvay is proactively promoting and supporting this approach as it is a powerful instrument for chemical producers to assess the implementation of Responsible Care and Product Stewardship principles of his distributor partners. As the ESAD programme represents a standardised third party assessment on European level, costly and multiple distributor audits by different producers are being avoided.

The key components of ESAD are a structured questionnaire containing over 250 single questions and  a detailed guidance note for the assessor. These questions, which require a „yes“ or „no“ answer, are categorised according to wether they represent mandatory requirements, industry norms or areas for future development.

Although ESAD primarily deals with the management systems of a chemical distributor, a premises inspection is also part of the assessment in order to take a photograph of the safety and quality status of the facilities and equipment, as well as the daily operations. There is also a special appendix dealing with food, pharamaceutical and cosmetic products.

An assessment, using ESAD , results in a detailed factual report, signed  by the assessor, without expressing any judgement or providing any certificate.

With ESAD, no qualification limits are set or weighting factors used because the individual chemical producer needs to compare the results of the factual assessment with its own requirements. Any desirable improvement will be discussed between the chemical producer and his distributor.

For more detailed information see
 http://www.fecc.org
(Choose ESAD in the Menu bar)