Responsible Care (RC)

WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE CARE?

Fecc’s Responsible Care (RC) Committee is a well-established platform for Company Responsible Care Coordinators and National Association representatives to exchange experience and information as well as to share best practices.

The Committee strives for high standards in the field of Responsible care, thus helping chemical distribution to operate safely and with care for future generations. It enables the industry to demonstrate how its health, safety, security, and environmental performance has improved over the years by ensuring the proper implementation of tools and programmes such as the Responsible Care Self-Assessment Webtool and the Fecc European Responsible Care Programme respectively.

The promotion of Responsible Care is a priority to Fecc and the Responsible Care Committee has been established to strengthen and develop as well as to coordinate the Responsible Care Programme with National Associations. The Committee monitors the developments of the Responsible Care Programme at European level (e. g. yearly collection and review of performance indicators), ensures an active promotion and communication of Responsible Care (also towards customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders) and carries out training initiatives (e. g. Responsible Care workshops, webinars).

NEW: Responsible Care Self-Assessment Webtool launched!

person holding pencil near laptop computer

In April 2020 Fecc published the Responsible Care Self-Assessment Excel Tool, which provides users with a practical tool to guide them towards excellence and to help drive continuous improvement in the Responsible Care field. The tool can be valuable both to companies and national associations.

Since then, in the framework of a close cooperation between the Cefic Responsible Care Issue Team and the Fecc Responsible Care Committee, the excel-based self-assessment tool has been transformed into a digital format.

On 9 December 2020 the new Responsible Care Webtool has been officially launched for chemical distributors during a dedicated webinar for Fecc’s members, which ohtlined the key features of the webtool with a live demonstration:

  • Possibility to benchmarking performance against chemical distribution peers
  • Cross-referencing performance against the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other international standards (ISO, etc.)
  • Specific option for chemical distributors to skip questions (‘light version’)
  • Tailor-made tips for the continuous improvement process within companies
  • Available in nine languages

The webtool provides complete data protection, and its features enable companies to assess their Responsible Care maturity level, as well as identify areas of continuous improvement.

This new digital version represents a major step to continue supporting companies towards improving their chemicals management and operational excellence.

To access to the webtool, please go to: http://self-assessment.responsible-care.com

“By 2020 we volunteered to participate in this vital tool’s national user acceptance test and consequently made good use of it in 2021 for our German sites at Burgbernheim and Monheim. FECC’s Responsible Care Committee customized the self-assessment webtool for manufacturers provided by CEFIC to fit all the needs vital for distribution companies. The tool considerably helps to evaluate and illustrate our Responsible Care performance. The questionnaires allow for answers according to the four individual levels of maturity within a simple multiple-choice format. The output of the tool indicates areas in which RC-processes need to be improved to fully satisfy the self-defined targets. The biggest advantage of the new digital tool is comparisons between individual sites within one corporation and future benchmarking. I expect that we will improve even further our RC-performance by identifying relevant areas of improvement on an international scale with the help of this smart and much acclaimed Responsible Care Self-Assessment Webtool.

BTC Europe is BASF’s European sales organization for small and medium-sized customers focused on specialty chemicals. We provide 17,000 customers in over 80 countries with more than 6,000 products and solutions. 

Sustainability is an increasingly important key factor for growth and value creation within BASF and BTC. Our commitment is reflected in different initiatives such as the Responsible Care Initiative, which BASF has been part of since the early 1990s and has just been reinforced in February 2021 by BASF’s Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, Dr. Martin Brudermüller.

A central pillar to assess and control our RC-performance is the Responsible Care Self-Assessment Webtool initiated by the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) and FECC.”

José Corral Montilla

Managing Director, BTC Europe

Fecc wishes to thank José Corral Montilla and BTC Europe very much for this great testimonial and their permission to use it.

User Manuals are available for

National Associations

Company Headquarters

Company Sites

COMMITTEE TASKS

General

  • Regular meetings of companies’ Responsible Care (RC) coordinators and Responsible Care managers of national associations
  • Provide training for new Responsible Care coordinators
  • Prepare promotional material, presentations and guidelines
  • Practical help and support to share best practices on the programme
  • Promote the programme with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders (e.g. insurance companies, European institutions and authorities).

Specific

  • Issue the ‘Authorisation Report’ which is the basis for granting the Responsible Care logo on presentation of the ‘Evaluation Report’ by Fecc Responsible Care Manager
  • Annual analysis of Key Performance Indicators (implementation, management of risks, training, improvements, community interaction and more) and recommend improvements. Decision on alternative Third-Party Verification tools (other than SQAS Distributor/ESAD)
  • Supervise  compliance with the Programme and in case of non-compliance recommend to the Fecc Board to withdraw the permission to use the Responsible Care logo.

RELEVANT DOCUMENTS & REPORTS:

Responsible Care Report 2021

Responsible Care Report 2020

Responsible Care Report 2019

Responsible Care Report 2018

Responsible Care Report 2017

Responsible Care Report 2016

Responsible Care Report 2015

Responsible Care Report 2014

Responsible Care Report 2013

Responsible Care Report 2012

Responsible Care Report 2011

Business Benefits of Responsible Care Leaflet

OTHER PUBLICATIONS:

For the Fecc European Responsible Care Programme click here.

For Guidelines and an overview of the Programme click here (January 2019).

For ICCA Rules Use of the Responsible Care Logo click here.

For ICCTA TPV logo rules and guidelines click here.

For more information, please contact Gerhard Ahlbrecht, gah@fecc.org +32 2 679 02 64

VIDEOS

ICCA & Responsible Care Making a Global Commitment to Safety, Security & Sustainability”

http://www.cefic.org/Responsible-Care/