Product Stewardship implementation

1. Create work documents
Akzo Nobel has issued a general guideline for implementing PS in an Akzo Nobel subsidiary company and The Swedish Plastics and Chemicals Federation has issued a document that describes PS work within different departments, including checklists of statements that each manager could consider. The latter document is in Swedish and can be ordered from Industrilitteratur.

Checklists for particular functions and managers within the Ethylene Amines subsidiary were developed based on these two documents and people were assigned the responsibility for these checklists. The checklists include the statements from the Swedish Plastics and Chemicals Federation, responsible person, a rating of how well the statements are fulfilled, comments and links to relevant documents. The statements are in the form “I have enough knowledge of …” or “There is a routine for evaluating…”. Examples of included statements can be found here.

2. Learn about present status
In order to have a base status with which to compare improvements, the current status for each statement have to be investigated.  The person responsible for a checklist with these kinds of statements evaluated how well his or her department/area of responsibility complied with the statements by rating the present status.

3. Implement Product Stewardship into existing management systems
Product Stewardship, just like Environmental Management Systems, is about continuous improvements, i.e. a continuous cycle of planning, implementing, checking and reviewing.

In order to establish a working procedure that supports the continuous improvement and involves the right people a PS process was included in the objectives in Ethylene Amines’ management system. The PS process includes a short description of the activities to be carried out, their timeframes, the person(s) responsible and relevant documents.

4. Inform and involve all employees
The responsibility of PS cannot be placed upon only one person. Every employee needs to be involved in order to make the work with PS run efficiently. They need to know how the work is being managed, what their roles are and how they can contribute to the work.
All employees were informed by setting up an intranet site, where PS is introduced to novices and the practical and organisational issues are explained. The site also presents links to the checklists for each concerned department manager, where they can see the statements that apply to them and also make changes and updates to the checklists.
Presentations were held for all employees with the aim of involving them and making them think in terms of environmental impact in their daily work. These presentations included the following issues:

• Concept of sustainable development and Corporate Responsibility
• Background to Responsible Care and Product Stewardship
• Introduction to the Life Cycle concept and Life Cycle Assessment
• The PS working procedure at Ethylene Amines
• Introduction to REACH

A deeper presentation and mini-workshop was held for those actually responsible for a checklist and those with more influence on the environmental impact of their products. The aim of the workshop was to come up with suggestions for decreasing the environmental impact and for raising the esteem for the company. These presentations were presented on the intranet site as well.

5. Kick-off
All of those who are responsible for a part of the PS checklists naturally need to get a bit more involved so, after having the organizational structure in place and the personnel informed, a kick-off meeting was held. The agenda included:

1. an update on PS in order for everybody to be in the same frame of mind

2. a short brainstorm around possible activities within PS on the basis of the targets and objectives for the company

3. preparations for the PS workshops to be held within each department (see below)

4. information on how to communicate proposals for and results from PS activities.

6. Activities for improvements
In order to establish continuous improvement, activities with allocated resources and appointed responsibilities have to be set. Proposals for such activities were collected by arranging small workshops within each department, at which the targets and objectives of the company as well as the statements/requirements in the checklists were discussed. The PS manager and/or someone else knowledgeable in the concepts of PS and health and environmental issues held these workshops. By having such workshops the people in each department also became more involved in the PS process as well as reaching the targets of the company. Not only do they have to do some of the actual work, but they were also involved in planning the work.
Resources in the form of money and time as well as responsibilities were set for the chosen activities and they were followed up on a regular basis.

7. Present the work to other interested parties
One step towards raising the esteem for the company can be to present chosen parts of the work being done within the framework of PS to authorities, organizations, media and the public. This was done by making a PS page on the Ethylene Amines’ official web site, where the background to PS and the underlying concepts are explained and the actual work with PS within the company is presented.

A new web site of Ethylene Amines is currently under construction and the PS information will be included in the new web site.

Experiences