Chemicals Management Software Guide 17
Chemicals management is starting to make its mark in corporate sustainability reporting. How can software help? Incorporating chemicals management information into an organisation’s sustainability reporting activities is not easy. Vanessa Zainzinger looks at how software used in chemicals management can help with the task of handling the data required. Sustainability has never been more important for a company’s reputation, its resilience and its bottom line. As public awareness and concern over the climate emergency has grown to new heights, society is increasing its expectations of the role businesses should play in today’s volatile environment. And the investment community’s widespread adoption of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting as a mandatory risk assessment tool has turned sustainability reporting from an optional undertaking to an essential part of corporate success. Historically, firms have focused their sustainability reports on impacts relating to climate change, water use and biodiversity loss. More recently, however, chemicals management has begun to play a vital role in corporate sustainability programmes. This is not least due to more sustainability benchmarks – such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the Chemical Footprint project and various ecolabels – addressing chemicals management. Most corporate sustainability reporting performed via the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), or ESG reporting standards incorporates some degree of chemical management information. And chemical use directly impacts multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to human health, climate change, aquatic health and ecosystem preservation. But incorporating chemicals management information into an organisation’s sustainability reporting activities is no mean feat, says Julian Moffatt, director
of environmental solutions at Chicagoheadquartered software provider, VelocityEHS. There is a “vast quantity of data that needs to be collected and analysed to make intelligent decisions and support sustainability reporting objectives,” says Mr Moffatt. Even small-to medium-sized organisations can have tens of thousands of distinct products circulating throughout their facilities as part of their normal course of business. “Simply tracking these products can be daunting enough, but when you factor in the need to cross-reference ingredients against a litany of chemical safety standards and regulatory lists, the challenge can become overwhelming. This is further compounded by the need to track chemical releases and emissions.” The scope of this challenge, he says, makes it “extremely difficult, if not downright impossible, to achieve without software”.
Finding the right systems Software tools can make the data challenge seem surmountable from several angles. For one, they can be used to quantify greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem impacts resulting from chemical use and the release of culprits such as ozone-depleting substances and chemicals that are toxic to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. They can also automate critical inventory tracking and cross-referencing against a vast chemical product library. Some
VelocityEHS tools directly support the completion of key reports required under environmental regulations, such as the US EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and Tier II Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory reports, as well as Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting, according to Mr Moffatt. Initially, however, chemical management [Ron] from a sustainability perspective is for many an unfamiliar and [Ron] a new challenge that firms are not sure how to approach, says Ron Huijsman, co-founder of sustainability management systems consultancy, Huco. As a result, companies differ greatly in their approaches to integrating chemicals management into sustainability reporting programmes, and the way they use software to do it. “Using spreadsheets and disjointed tools and systems is still more the rule than the exception,” says Mr Huijsman. “Companies will, for instance, use different systems for federal and state reporting (in the US), or for chemical compliance and for sustainability reporting, even if one is an element of the other.” Even large companies can struggle with finding the right system to keep on top of the plethora of reporting initiatives, sustainable development goals and carbon disclosure projects that affect their sustainability and chemical reporting duties, Huco found when benchmarking oil and gas companies on their climate change reports. “Some larger companies that are well established and think they have this
