Fine Chemicals: New in Pilot Quantities
Evaluations to verify Responsible Care This month, the Chemical Manufacturers Association is getting its first look at a proposed program that may help to give additional credibility to the chemical industry group's Responsible Care initiative. CMA's public advisory group has long held that external verification is crucial for the credibility of Responsible Care. Seeking to improve the sixyear-old initiative, a board-level committee backed third-party visits—as well as performance measurements and timetables for implementation—in June 1993. Now, a CMA work group is presenting its first draft of a proposed verification program and a guidebook for companies to help them get ready for sample evaluations scheduled over the next few months. "Self-evaluations just aren't going to cut it," says Dan Roczniak, CMA associate director for Responsible Care. "We say we are doing great things; we have to show we are doing them." The work group began developing the verification program last year, with an eye on flexibility. Upon approval from the Responsible Care board, some of the 15 members of the work group will visit two to four companies eager to participate in the first tests of verification. Evaluations will not be anything like audits, says Roczniak. The process is not a wall-to-wall examination of every single plant according to a checklist, he explains. The visits to top management and plant floors with a sampling of open-ended questions will show whether management systems are in place, that "Responsible Care is here," he says. Industry peers and a representative of the public, such as a member of CMA's national public advisory panel, will visit each of the selected companies for four to five days. The team will speak to the executive contact, then it will split up to visit two or more plant sites, where a local community representative might join the evaluators. Roczniak says the verification visits are modeled after the Malcolm Baldrige quality management award program. There are no levels that companies must reach; companies will not pass or fail. Each of seven management systems will be evaluated and judged "exemplary,"
"satisfactory," or "needs improvement." Companies must demonstrate leadership and accountability, stakeholder outreach and involvement, performance planning, risk management, performance management, performance assessment, and information and manage ment reporting. Narrative reports will accompany the rating. Each company is to decide whether and how to disclose its results to the public. In this initiative, CMA is borrowing from the Canadian Chemical Producers Association (CCPA), the originator of the Responsible Care initiative. CCPA is further along in its verification process. After two pilot evaluations completed last year, the CCPA board approved a mandatory third-party verification program. Teams were trained in the spring, and 11 companies agreed to be visited in 1994. The first visit, at Oakville, Ont.based Elf Atochem Canada, is scheduled to begin Sept. 22. All of the 55 members who have been with CCPA since Responsible Care began are to be visited by the end of 1995. Each firm will pay for its evaluation, the costs of which are expected to range between $7,000 and $15,000. Under the CCPA program, a team of two industry people and one public representative visit senior management and plant sites over three days, covering 60 or so questions given to the company for both management and plant-level employees. CCPA Responsible Care project manager Graham Creedy says the questions are open-ended and that verifiers will be able to supplement the questions. CCPA members, who recommitted to Responsible Care in 1989 with a three year milestone for implementing the codes, are expected to have developed procedures and be using them. "[The team is] confirming that those procedures do exist," says Creedy. "If the ink's still wet on the procedure, they might want to delve deeper into whether [it has] been initiated." The final day of the visit includes an oral presentation by the evaluation team, clarifying points with the company and discussing areas that need further action. Roczniak hopes to present the U.S. program, after testing, to the CMA board next year. The board, he says, will decide whether to approve the verification process. Roczniak expects a voluntary program at first, which may then evolve into a mandatory part of Responsible Care. Elisabeth Kirschner
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