ERCO is proud to be one of the founding members of Responsible Care® and a member of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC), the Asociación Gremial de Industriales Químicos de Chile (ASIQUIM A.G.) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC). We recognize our responsibility to continuously improve our health, safety and environmental performance, and to be sensitive and responsible to community concerns.
Responsible Care® is the chemistry industry’s commitment to sustainability and is a Canadian success story. Launched in 1985 by the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC), Responsible Care® is a UN-recognized sustainability initiative. It was later adopted by the American Chemistry Council and has spread around the world to over 60 countries. It addresses community protection, employee health and safety, environmental protection, product stewardship, and social engagement.
Unlike prescriptive industry codes or standards, Responsible Care® is an ethic, guided by principles of sustainability. It is a concise articulation of the chemistry industry’s culture, way of life, belief system, set of values, and public commitment not just to do what is good for business, but to do what is good for the environment and society.
At its core, Responsible Care® is the belief that public trust can only be earned when chemistry companies do the right thing – and are seen to do the right thing – always and everywhere. Nearly 35 years after the founding of Responsible Care®, its member companies continue to be industry performance leaders, bound together by a commitment to address challenges, and to continuously improve the chemistry industry’s overall performance.
ERCO is a signatory company of the Responsible Care® Global Charter, which was launched by the International Council of Chemical Associations in 2006. The Global Charter promotes the principles of Responsible Care® around the world.
Under Responsible Care®, ERCO operates according to the following principles:
- We ensure that our operations do not present an unacceptable level of risk to our employees, customers, the public, or the environment;
- We provide relevant information on the hazards of chemicals to our customers, urging them to use and dispose products in a safe manner and make such information available to the public on request;
- We practise product stewardship by assessing the impact of our products throughout their production, distribution, and then onward to end use. ERCO takes the necessary steps to eliminate or manage risks to the health and safety of employees, customers, product recipients, users, and the environment;
- We comply with all legal requirements which affect our operations and products;
- We are responsive and sensitive to community concerns;
- We work actively with and assist governments and selected organizations to foster and encourage equitable and attainable standards; and
- We strive to continuously improve our performance in measurable ways.
Responsible Care® extends throughout the supply chain and involves interaction with emergency responders, governments, regulatory bodies and communities. Responsible Care® companies consistently achieve higher performance in the areas of worker safety and the overall business of chemistry than the manufacturing sector as a whole. Member companies have also succeeded in greatly reducing distribution incidents and hazardous releases to air, land and water, including greenhouse gas emissions.
Every three years all Responsible Care® member companies must undergo an extensive, external verification for Canadian facilities or an Responsible Care Management System (RCMS) recertification audit of their management system for U.S. facilities. Verification of the Responsible Care® commitment is a significant undertaking and is not taken lightly. Additionally, member companies must report key Responsible Care® metrics annually to the CIAC and ACC. These metrics, which include areas such as occupational safety, process safety and plant emissions, are then reported publicly to ensure consistency and transparency from the chemical industry.
Please click on the second headline below for an overview of the verification process and a link to ERCO’s most recent Responsible Care® verification report.
To maintain its membership, every three years ERCO undergoes a Responsible Care® verification or RCMS audit of its Ethics and Management System. In Canada, this involves a detailed review of one or more of our facilities by a team of verifiers. The team includes at a minimum:
- Industry verifier – typically respected individuals with longstanding and senior-level experience in Responsible Care® companies;
- Public-at-large verifiers – typically past members of the CIAC National Advisory Panel, comprised of a cross-section of public advocates and concerned citizens with interests in key aspects of Responsible Care®; and
- Community verifiers – represent the interests of the communities in which the company operates.
In the United States, the recertification is conducted by an independent, accredited auditor.
Through the verification process, the verification team seeks to form judgements with respect to three overarching questions:
- Is this company sufficiently meeting the detailed code expectations communicated in the Responsible Care® Commitments?
- Are effective and self-healing management systems sufficiently in place for setting and meeting all company goals, and are they driving continual improvement?
- Is the commitment to the Responsible Care® Ethic and Principles for Sustainability tangible and does it sufficiently guide the company’s judgement, decisions and actions, internally and externally?
In past verifications, verifiers have reported that “the Responsible Care® Ethic and Principles for Sustainability are guiding ERCO’s decisions and actions, and that ERCO has a self-healing management system to drive continual improvement.”
Please click on the highlighted words to view ERCO’s most recent Responsible Care® Verification Report.