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The chemical industry has changedftsways, but more radical actions ι may be needed m change public opinion
Rrahonsible
Care Marc S. Reisch C&EN Northeast News Bureau
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or chemical producers today, the battle cry is 'Track us, don't trust us." The emphasis is on proving positively that the chemical industry's performance is up to snuff. But the prob lem is that the North American and Western European public by and large still do not believe that the chemical in dustry is anything but a necessary evil. Two years into its second decade, the U.S. chemical industry's venerable Re sponsible Care program still has not sig nificantly changed public perception of chemical manufacturers. Questions re main about the safety of many chemical products and the way the industry as sumes the risks of manufacturing, trans porting, and handling chemical prod ucts. Can Responsible Care usher in a radical change in public perception by emphasizing recent corporate health, safety, and environment goals? The industry knows it is performing better today than it was 10 years ago. And some opinion leaders have a better view of the industry because of Respon sible Care, too. Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) credits the Responsible Care program for "bringing major health, safety, and environmental bene fits to tens of thousands of industry workers and plant communities." Boeh-
lert is chairman of the House Commit tee on Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources & Environment. But the program has largely failed to do what it set out to do: convince the public that the benefits the chemical industry provides far out weigh any disadvantages. This second decade of Responsible Care can continue to preach to the con verted, or it can make a difference with the public. The industry wants credit for all the improvements it feels Responsi ble Care has helped advance by way of safer operations of plants, shipments of materials, and stewardship of chemical materials even after they have left the manufacturing plant. Chemical companies intend to show that they are doing their best with per formance improvement data and goals. Putting a public face on performance means tying it all in with two addition al efforts. The first is an effort industry associations have made to establish third-party assessment programs to ensure individual company manage ment practices square with Responsi ble Care precepts. The American Chemistry Council (ACC, formerly the Chemical Manufacturers Association) and the U.K. Chemical Industries As sociation (UKCIA) now have voluntary third-party programs in place. The Ca nadian Chemical Producers Associa
tion (CCPA) has a mandatory verifica tion program. The second effort seeks increasingly to tie the operational checks and balanc es of a systems approach that makes Re sponsible Care work together with the sustainable development movement. The latter movement attempts to link profitable corporate development of re newable, largely agricultural, resources to environmental and societal benefits. John Elkington, chairman of Londonbased management consultants SustainAbility, says the chemical industry has its share of "excellent people who have done extraordinary things, but they simply don't recognize the scale of the problem they face." Elkington, who has advised companies such as Shell and BP, says the mistake that the chemical industry has made up to now is to attempt to prove its worth by telling people how the industry benefits the public. "People are not per suaded by that," Elkington says. It's not that the public spends a lot of time thinking about the chemical indus try, he says. But when the industry does come to mind, reports of accidents hurt public perception of the industry. Con versely, the industry would do better if it brought out new products that would benefit the public—the proverbial cure for cancer, for example. What the indus try has to do in the face of public scruti ny, Elkington says, is to "enormously SEPTEMBER 4,2000 C&EN
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• showed 43% had a favorable view of over respond" to public concern the industry. over issues such as global warming Canadian public says Despite these public impressions, and greenhouse gases. chemical industry riskiest CCPA's recent survey—which was One way to respond to public undertaken by Earnscliffe Research concern is to make a corporate com& Communications, Ottawa, Ontario, mitment to environmental solutions. for the association—found the chemiFord Motor Co. may have thought it cal industry's reputation improved achieved a public victory in the resignificantly compared with 1986 in cent commitment to build more fuelterms of the industry's ability to creefficient sport-utility vehicles. The ate jobs and growth, as well as in efreal victory, Elkington says, would forts to minimizerisksto people, minhave been a commitment to build a imize risks to the environment, and virtually nonpolluting hydrogencorrect chemical problems. There powered vehicle. Chemical compawas no change in the survey's meanies have to make similar radical sure of the industry's honesty with commitments, he says. Note: Respondents ascribing significant risk to different the public. Only 18% of respondents industries as part of 1999 survey of 1,000 Canadian adults. It will take some doing to change felt the industry was excellent or public perception. Earlier this year, the Source: Canadian Chemical Producers Association good at being honest. European Chemical Industry Council Brian Wastle, vice president of Re(CEFIC) issued a summary of a survey of Canadian chemical producers also 9,000 Western European citizens that cel- have found public perception difficult sponsible Care at CCPA, says a deeper ebrated the end of a decline in the chemi- to change. CCPA's 1999 survey of reading of the 60-page survey report cal industry's public image. Compared 1,000 Canadian adults showed that 40% shows that the public is most worried with surveys in 1994,1996, and 1998, the of respondents had a favorable view of about the prevention of chemical accilatest survey showed "a small improve- the chemical industry. A 1986 CCPA dents and is concerned about the longment." Compared with 1998, citizens' fa- survey, conducted shortly after a term health effects of the industry's emisvorable views of the industry rose from Union Carbide plant accident that sions. That is why, he says, CCPA sees 42% in 1998 to 45% in 2000. killed thousands in Bhopal, India, the Responsible Care effort as an adjunct
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SEPTEMBER 4,2000 C&EN
to but not a replacement for "tough" government regulations. It's also why CCPA contributes to the global initiative to complete a battery of toxicological tests on high-production-volume chemicals coordinated by the International Council of Chemical Associations in concert with ACC, CEFIC, and other national chemical industry associations. Changing public opinion is hopeless without a "massive" advertising campaign, Wastle believes. "So we are focusing our efforts on engaging Canadian opinion leaders." Those opinion leaders are often people who attend town hall meetings, write letters to newspaper editors, and who are generally engaged in the social process. The CCPA survey also found many people fearful of the risks chemical operations posed to the environment, human health, and human safety. When it comes to the environmental information that the industry can employ to advantage, the report suggests that "results show that hard targets for environmental improvement are the strongest approach." CCPA's 1998 Reducing Emissions Report sets some targets—among them a 79% reduction in members' chemical emissions per unit of product by 2003 compared with 1992 levels. In 1998, members had already reduced emissions by 69%. The survey also reinforces the value of third-party verification of plant Responsible Care operations, he says. CCPA's Responsible Care in Place Verification program requires member companies to bring in a panel of environmental activists, local citizens, and industry experts every three years to evaluate a company's endorsement of Responsible Care goals and objectives. 'The Responsible Care program is not a voluntary program. Voluntary implies starting and stopping at will," Wastle points out. And the verification procedure in place now requires not only that companies show systems are in place to enforce Responsible Care, but that companies are ethically committed to Responsible Care. As forward-looking as CCPA is, its Responsible Care program still does not encompass the radical commitments to change that consultant Elkington calls for. Given the diversity of chemical companies that associations represent, it is more likely the associations will help along incremental changes and much less likely that associations will formulate plans for radical change. For instance, the U.S.-based ACC has called upon members to commit to performance im-
nies" and learn more about specific company plans to achieve performance goals, Doyle promises. But, he adds, 'We've elected not to have overarching goals for ACC at this time. We'll stick with a focus on promoting ACC's vision of no accidents, injuries, or harm to the environment." Performance goals are a fairly new feature of Responsible Care, so they are not now a formal part of ACC's own fouryear-old brand of voluntary third-party verification: Management Systems Veri-
provement goals. According to Richard Doyle, ACC vice president for Responsible Care, the organization's 190 member companies and 60 partners responded in the fall of 1999 with a total of 450 performance goals. While those goals overlap to a degree from company to company, many are specific to the company submitting the goals, Doyle says. ACC plans to make the companyspecific goals public this October. 'We'll put the database on the Internet so people can contact individual compa-
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business fication (MSV). The program incorpo rates industry, plant community, and public-interest group representatives in a three- to four-day evaluation of a com pany's procedures to comply with the Responsible Care codes. Only 86 of ACCs 190 members have completed at least one MSV to date, and another 17 are scheduled for the remainder of 2000 and into 2001. But as part of the MSV process, most "companies discuss their environmental performance and their goals to show that the system works," Doyle says. And he acknowledges that the MSV process is developing in ways that would more formally include an evaluation of performance. ACCs Public Advisory Panel—made up of government, environmental, con sumer activist, and public-interest group representatives—is encouraging more emphasis on performance. In an open letter contained in ACCs Respon sible Care Report 2000, the group writes: "We see MSV and communitybased performance tracking as comple mentary and interrelated. A link to per formance is crucial to making MSV
credible to the public. While MSV as sesses internal processes for fostering good environmental, health, and safety performance, performance tracking— developed in conjunction with the com munity—should demonstrate the actual effectiveness of these practices." Individual companies have in some cases asked verifiers to consider perfor mance and goals for the future in the MSV they conduct of the company. That was the case for the MSV conducted for Dow Chemical in March 1999. 'The bot tom line of Responsible Care is perfor mance improvement," says R. Stephen Rose, Dow Chemical's global Responsi ble Care coordinator. Including perfor mance criteria in the MSV "helped to provide feedback on whether our goals for 2005 were appropriate," Rose says. Dow first set 2005 employee health and safety targets in 1996. The company's 2000 Public Report Update shows that it was on target in 1999 to reduce process safety incidents 90% from a base year of 1994. It recorded 43 incidents that each caused more than $25,000 in damages due to fires, explosions, and significant
chemical releases from processing equip ment in 1999, down from 123 in 1994. The company's goal is to reduce such inci dents to 12 by 2005. In other cases, the goals can highlight failures. For instance, on the way to achieving a goal to reduce breaks in and spills from process equip ment and facilities, the company record ed 914 incidents in 1999, which was down from 1,363 in 1994 but above the target of about 590 for 1999. Dow's 2005 target for this type of accident is 136. However, the variety of schemes and methods companies use to measure and set performance standards and goals can be bewildering. A few can involve more universal standards. Companies can track emissions of chemicals listed on the Envi ronmental Protection Agency's Toxics Re lease Inventory (TRI). The components of the list have changed over time, so it is not a consistent measure. In other cases, com panies can track injuries in a consistent fashion based on Occupational Safety & Health Administration standards. St. Louis-based Solutia, for instance, uses both TRI data and OSHA data to track performance, says Garth F. Fort,
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