Strategic Approach To International Chemicals Management Research Articles

Pharmaceutical pollution: A weakly regulated global environmental risk

AbstractThe effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment (PiE) are well evidenced, yet from an environmental perspective, pharmaceuticals remain weakly regulated internationally. Pharmaceutical pollutants are addressed under the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), a global framework for the management of chemicals and wastes. We provide an overview of the state of knowledge on PiE and identify international efforts targeting the regulation of PiE, as well as gaps in regulation and how SAICM could address them. ‘Environmentally persistent pharmaceutical pollutants’ (EPPP) was adopted under SAICM as an issue of concern 6 years after ‘nanotechnologies and manufactured nanomaterials’. Our analysis draws on this field to inform the development of policy approaches to EPPP. While there is significant cooperation underway on PiE, initiatives are highly fragmented. The post‐2020 SAICM may help bridge the gaps. Further development should be informed by experiences from nanomaterials, particularly with respect to definitions, information gathering and building more integrative approaches.

Understanding Chemicals in Products

Abstract The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) has published a policy brief that addresses chemicals of concern in products such as textiles, toys, building materials, and electronics, and efforts to minimize their adverse effects on human health and the environment. The policy brief titled, “Understanding Chemicals in Products,” is a contribution from the Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded project on “Global Best Practices on Emerging Chemical Policy Issues of Concern under SAICM.”

Chemical management will enter the spotlight

A key sustainability goal for industry, governments, and environmentalists in 2020 is expanding efforts to improve the management of commercial chemicals. They plan to build on a United Nations deal called the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). The aim of SAICM, which was adopted in 2006 and expires this year, is to ensure that chemicals are manufactured and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on human health and the environment. To keep global efforts moving in this area, industry, governments, and environmental and health groups will convene in October for the fifth International Conference on Chemicals Management. Their goal is to extend and expand SAICM through 2030. This meeting is “the top advocacy priority for the chemical industry,” says Michael P. Walls on behalf of the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA). Walls is vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council,

Inventory and action plan for PFOS and related substances in Suriname as basis for Stockholm Convention implementation

Within the framework of the Stockholm Convention implementation in Suriname, the first inventory of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) has been developed. The major stocks of PFOS are firefighting foams with minor stocks in pesticides (ant baits) and possibly carpets. The inventory of firefighting foams assessed the import, current stocks and major use sites and recent releases. Considerable amount of PFOS and potentially PFOS containing firefighting foams are stored at the military base, the oil company and small firefighting departments throughout the country. The total amount of stored PFAS firefighting foam in Suriname is estimated to be at least 275.6 tonnes, where the major stockpile of 206 tonnes is at the oil storage facilities. For some of these foams PFOS content is confirmed and for others it is not clear if the foam contains PFOS or other per- or polyfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS). The upper estimate of PFOS content is 4133 kg in these foams. Additionally, PFOS or other PFAS has also been discovered in fire extinguishers in institutions. The total amount of PFOS related substance EtFOSA imported with the pesticide sulfluramid was 75 kg. The imports were banned in 2014 and is controlled. A considerable amount of synthetic carpets are in stores even produced before 2003 where main use of PFOS from 3 M took place possibly containing PFOS related substances. A compilation of potentially PFOS contaminated sites has been made. Potentially contaminated sites result from firefighting foam use, dumpsites and sulfluramid use. The airport where firefighting foam was applied is above a major drinking water reservoir, where an urgent assessment is needed. Due to the lack of analytical capacity for PFOS and precursors, drinking water, firefighting foam or impacted carpets, could not been analysed.An action plan for the control of PFOS and other PFAS has been developed considering the synergy of the Stockholm Convention and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) addressing this emerging pollution issue for developing countries.

Improving information flow on chemicals in electronic products and E-waste to minimize negative consequences for health and the environment

Rapid advancements in technology are leading to the obsolescence of electronics and a global demand for new products at an increasing rate. As a result, increasing quantities of electronic products and electronic waste are created each year, creating challenges for health and the environment throughout the global product chain for electronics. This paper discusses findings from the United Nations Environment Program’s “Chemicals in Products” electronics case study, with a focus on a specific goal of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) to ensure that information on chemicals is available, accessible, user friendly, adequate and appropriate to the needs of all stakeholders throughout the product chain. We use our case study findings plus recent insights and examples from the literature and businesses to offer recommendations for improving both the flow of chemical-related information in electronics product chains and sustainability in e-waste management. To identify the needs, gaps, obstacles, and solutions related to providing and accessing information on chemicals throughout electronic products’ life cycles, we interviewed 28 stakeholders at various points in the product chain. The interviews revealed a critical need for a global standard for chemical-related information sharing in the product chain as well as accessible platforms for effective communication and bi-directional sharing of that information by all stakeholders. Adequate flow and transparency of chemicals-related information was found to be important to reducing companies’ costs and business risks and also to protecting consumers and workers in electronic products’ production and end-of-life phases. In addition, the findings indicated a need to raise awareness about the chemicals present in products, along with their associated hazards, in order to improve risk management and handling of electronics and e-waste. In cases where improved information alone would not likely improve health or environmental outcomes, such as in e-waste management, we discuss additional steps to improve the situation, such as new business models for recycling and waste management. Knowledge about which chemicals are used in electronics, as well as information on how they are used, handled, and recycled or disposed of, will help authorities create meaningful regulations that minimize adverse impacts on human health and the environment. Improved bi-directional flow of chemical-related information in the electronics product chain will also help product developers better understand how to design products that result in fewer negative consequences for health and the environment.

SAICM Science Sector and IUPAC Activities

AbstractThe Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) is a policy framework designed to foster the sound management of chemicals globally. SAICM is a key United Nations initiative on sustainable development that is being undertaken jointly through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). These two agencies have organised the SAICM Secretariat. SAICM builds on the series of World Summits on Sustainable Development that recognised the economic importance of the chemical industry, but also its potential environmental and health costs (see box).

Global Governance on Chemical Sound Management and Challenges in Asia-Pacific Region

Nowadays with industrialization, modernization, globalization and informalization, the whole world are paying more and more attention to chemical management. International efforts, such as ratified international conventions, Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Lablling of Chemicals (GHS) and The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) are carried out to protect our environment and ourselves from chemical harm. Chemical issues are urgent and complex, which normally are related to other social-economic issues and vary in different countries. The big challenge in Asia-Pacific Region chemical management lies in (1) uneven chemical industry development demand, (2) diversification in basic realities and emphasizes in chemical managements, (3) limited time and money with massive work and heavy responsibility and (4) lack of transparences and information for stakeholders. The joint effort is required, under the condition of agree to disagree, to change the current situation. Suggestions are made in the following areas: (1) strength indigenous innovation and adjustment of industrial structures, (2) establish core act and regulation system and improve the law enforcement mechanism, (3) implement international standards and increase the international information exchange and (4) establish monitoring and early warning system when implement primary responsibility for enterprises.

Implementation of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management in Cambodia: effects of regime design

Over the past 20 years, a cluster of international environmental agreements has developed aiming at reducing the risks associated with production and use of chemicals. The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) is the newest addition to this cluster and serves to guide efforts to meet the 2020 goal to use and produce chemicals in a way that minimizes significant adverse effects on human health and the environment. SAICM differs from other chemical and waste agreements on several key points: It is a policy framework that is legally non-binding; it comprises a broad scope of activities; and it allows for active participation of non-governmental stakeholders. A central aim of SAICM is to decrease the gap between developed and developing countries in terms of capacities to manage chemicals safely. This article examines the early implementation of SAICM, based on a national-level case study in Cambodia and interviews with SAICM stakeholders. The results show that SAICM has generated a clear momentum in Cambodia and has led to several implementation projects. Based on the interviews, the overall conclusion is that design features of the SAICM—its broad scope, multi-stakeholder participation and voluntary status—are appropriate for the purpose of improving chemicals management in a developing country like Cambodia. However, these features also bring about difficulties in measuring progress on implementation. The future development of SAICM therefore needs to balance the benefits of its key design features with the need to more effectively and precisely monitor progress toward the 2020 goal.

The Regulatory Framework for Nanomaterials at a Global Level: SAICM and WTO Insights

The regulation of nanomaterials is being discussed at various levels. This article offers a historical description of governmental activities concerning the safety of nanomaterials at the United Nations (UN) level since 2006, with a focus on the UN Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). The outcomes of the SAICM process were a nanospecific resolution and the addition of new activities on nanotechnologies and manufactured nanomaterials to the SAICM's Global Plan of Action. The article discusses the implications of these decisions for multilateral environmental agreements. In addition, it studies the consequences of the regulation of nanotechnologies activities on trade governance, in particular the relationship between the SAICM to the legally binding World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements (notably the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade). The article concludes that the SAICM decisions on manufactured nanomaterials are compatible with WTO law.

U.S. OUT OF SAFETY FORUM

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION last week bowed out of an international effort on chemical safety. The U.S. will no longer participate in the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS), according to a letter from the Department of State. The forum operates under the aegis of the World Health Organization and brings together national governments, United Nations organizations, and environmental and labor groups. IFCS is designed to develop and promote strategies for and partnerships on the sound management of chemicals. The forum is an outgrowth of principles on chemicals management agreed to at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment & Development. IFCS has met formally every three years since its founding in 1994. In the Sept. 12 letter to IFCS, Daniel T. Fantozzi, director of environmental policy at the State Department, explained that the U.S. is shifting its focus to a chemicals management accord forged in 2006. That agreement, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), ...

The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management: Lost Opportunity or Foundation for a Brave New World?

Numerous international instruments have been developed to promote sustainable chemicals management. However, until recently, a common overarching framework for sustainable chemicals policy was missing. The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) was developed to address this challenge. This article will provide a short overview of the context and the negotiation process of SAICM, and it will give a short summary and assessment of its content. The article will conclude that SAICM is neither a lost opportunity nor the foundation of a brave new world of chemicals policy, but that it establishes a comprehensive institutional framework that can be further developed into an effective instrument of international chemicals policy.

Policy: Live from Dubai: A New Chemical Agreement

After late-night, last-minute negotiations, a voluntary international agreement to protect humans and the environment against harmful chemicals was adopted on 6 February 2006. Representatives from 140 countries, environmental advocacy groups, industry associations, and UN agencies attended the three-day International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The agreement establishes the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), which gives nations a framework for fulfilling the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development goal of ensuring that chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse effects. Implementation of SAICM will be supported by a new chemicals secretariat within the UN Environment Programme that will carry out the “Overarching Policy Strategy.” This strategy provides countries, especially economies in transition, with templates to begin coping with issues such as remediating contamination, using safer substitutes, and creating toxic release inventories. The agreement offers broad suggestions such as reducing exposures by improving occupational safety, developing better responses to spills and accidents, and eliminating child labor involving chemicals. Some EU countries offered modest funding for a “Quick Start Programme” to help developing countries move ahead in the near term. Many participants saw the meeting as polarized into EU and U.S. camps on some of the most contentious issues, including precaution—regulating or banning chemicals suspected of harm without complete certainty of their effects. In a February 7 statement on behalf of the EU presidency, Austrian minister Josef Proll said, “We don’t need to see a tragedy happen to put safety systems in place.” The same day, U.S. assistant secretary of state Claudia McMurray told an AP reporter, “We have a different approach to the way we regulate chemicals in our country. We may not know everything now, but let’s move forward anyhow.” The agreement incorporates wording from the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development stating that precaution “shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” The EU pushed to elaborate on this statement with a clearer connection between chemicals and human health—a push the U.S. delegation opposed. Disagreement also arose over whether the agreement should invoke specific international bodies such as the World Bank or the Global Environment Facility as potential funding sources. The United States failed to win language that would have made SAICM irrelevant to multinational regulations such as those of the World Trade Organization, a position some say was aimed at keeping environmental and human health values from challenging trade practices. In a February 27 press release McMurray said, “SAICM recognizes that while we all share the goal of minimizing the risks presented by some chemicals, there are many valid ways to achieve that goal.” But others saw the meeting as lacking political will. Daryl Ditz, senior policy adviser for chemicals at the Washington, DC–based NGO Center for International Environmental Law, says, “Regrettably, the United States was the number-one obstacle to a coordinated global response to the problems posed by chemicals.” The ICCM next revisits the Dubai agreement in 2009 to assess progress and identify problems.

The Application of Chemical Leasing Business Models in Mexico

To better address the requirements of the changing multilateral order, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Cleaner Production Programme, in 2004, developed the new Sustainable Industrial Resource Management (SIRM) approach. This approach is in accordance with the principles decided at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Unlike the traditional approaches to environmental management, the SIRM concept captures the idea of achieving sustainable industrial development through the implementation of circular material and energy flows in the entire production chain and reduction of the amount of material and energy used with greater efficiency solutions. The SIRM approach seeks to develop new models to encourage a shift from selling products to supplying services, modifying, in this manner, the supplier/user relationship and resulting in a win-win situation for the economy and the environment. Chemical Leasing represents such a new service-oriented business model and is currently being promoted by UNIDO's Cleaner Production Programme. MAIN FEATURES. One of the potential approaches to address the problems related to ineffective use and over-consumption of chemicals is the development and implementation of Chemical Leasing business models. These provide concrete solutions to the effective management of chemicals and on the ways negative releases to the environment can be reduced. The Chemical Leasing approach is a strategy that addresses the obligations of the changing international chemicals policy by focusing on a more service-oriented strategy. Mexico is one of the countries that were selected for the implementation of UNIDO's demonstration project to promote Chemical Leasing models in the country. The target sector of this project is the chemical industry, which is expected to shift their traditional business concept towards a more service and value-added approach. This is being achieved through the development of company specific business models that implement the above-indicated Chemical Leasing concept with the support from the Mexican National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC). The implementation of Chemical Leasing in Mexico has proven to be an efficient instrument in enhancing sustainable chemical management and significantly reducing emissions in Mexico. Several companies from the chemical industrial sector implement or agreed to implement chemical leasing business models. Based on the positive findings of the project, several Mexican companies started to negotiate contents of possible Chemical Leasing contracts with suitable business partners. The project further aimed at disseminating information on Chemical Leasing. It successfully attracted globally operating companies in the chemicals sector to explore possibilities to implement Chemical Leasing business models in Mexico. At the international level, the results of the UNIDO project were presented on 20th September 2005 during a side event of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) Preparation Conference in Vienna. To facilitate the promotion and application of Chemical Leasing project at international level, UNIDO is currently developing a number of tools to standardize Chemical Leasing projects. These include, among others, Chemical leasing contract models; Chemical Leasing data base to find partners for chemical leasing; and guidelines to implement Chemical Leasing projects and work programmes.

SAFELY MANAGING CHEMICALS

BRAND-NEW INTERNATIONAL guidelines have been set to chart approaches for making, transporting, using, and disposing chemicals in ways that protect people's health and the environment. Negotiators completed this plan, known as the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), earlier this month in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (C&EN, Feb. 13, page 12). The strategy is designed to help the nations of the world implement, by 2020, a comprehensive approach for managing chemicals. In addition to this noble goal, the accord may also play into future trade disputes, including possible challenges to the European Union's new legislation for regulating chemicals. The core of the Dubai plan is a menu of more than 250 actions for use by governments, industry, unions, environmental and community activists, and researchers. Recommendations include developing better methods to determine the impact of chemicals on human health, eliminating child labor that involves hazardous substances, and encouraging ...

NEGOTIATORS FINISH PACT ON CHEMICALS

NEGOTIATORS AT THE UNITED Nations International Conference on Chemicals Management completed a voluntary global strategy for safely managing chemicals late on Feb. 6. The meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is the culmination of three years of talks on a Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). The deal is designed to protect people and the environment from the potentially harmful effects of chemicals. It is primarily aimed at helping developing countries with weak or no regulatory systems for chemicals management. SAICM is a guideline, not a binding treaty, providing a list of policy options that these nations could employ, such as regulations on chemical waste (C&EN, Sept. 19,2005, page 27). Countries both rich and poor, the chemical industry, and labor and environmental activists around the world endorse the concept of SAICM. The Bush Administration had taken a series of hard-line positions on seemingly arcane points that had threatened to derail the talks. For instance, Cl...