Today, Clean Production Action released its 5th Annual Chemical Footprint
Project (CFP) Report —which evaluates and benchmarks participating companies
on their progress to best practices in proactive chemicals management. The 33
companies participating in the CFP 2020 survey — its highest number to date —
came from seven industries and ranged in size from small, privately owned
companies to large, publicly traded multinationals. For the first time in the
five years of the CFP Survey, seven companies scored over 80 percent of possible
points. These front-runners were far more likely than other participants in the
Survey to:
• Have senior leadership- and Board-level engagement in chemicals
management
• Publicly disclose their Restricted Substances List (RSL),
manufacturing RSL (MRSL), and CFP 2020 Survey responses and scores
• Measure their chemical footprint using the CFP Chemicals of High
Concern (CoHC) reference list of over 2,200 chemicals
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• Invest in safer alternatives to CoHCs
Investors, retailers, and NGOs increasingly demand transparency as to where
companies are on their chemicals management journey. CFP
Signatories include
investors with over $2 trillion in assets under management, and retailers and
health care organizations with over $800 billion in purchasing power.
The CFP Survey provides a holistic framework for how companies can identify
hazardous chemicals in their products, packaging, manufacturing and supply
chains — and replace them with safer alternatives.
“This past year’s COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that things we cannot see
can hurt us very badly and that the single most effective strategy for
safeguarding health and preventing disease is to prevent exposure. These lessons
underscore the importance of reducing exposures to hazardous chemicals in the
economy,” explains Philip Landrigan, MD, pediatrician
epidemiologist and Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the
Global Observatory on Pollution and Health at Boston College. “A
large and growing body of evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that toxic
chemicals can cause a range of diseases that include cancer, diseases of the
heart and lungs, and reproductive impairment. Prevention of these impacts is
most effectively achieved by phasing out the use of toxic chemicals.”
This year’s Disclosure
Leaders —
companies that agreed to publicly disclose their survey responses and score,
demonstrating their willingness to engage with stakeholders on the measures they
are taking to understand and reduce their chemical footprint — are
Beautycounter, Becton Dickinson and Co., GOJO Industries, Herman
Miller, HP Inc., Humanscale, Naturepedic, Seventh
Generation
and Walmart.
As Tim Greiner, co-founder and Managing Director at sustainability
consulting firm Pure Strategies — one of the founding organizations behind
CFP —
explained
in 2017: “Chemicals management has been a compliance-focused effort for a long
time within companies. [But] the good news is that companies are shifting to
chemicals management approaches that are based on continuous improvement, and
moving to safer materials before there are regulatory requirements. A key part
of this is less reliance on a risk framework and more focus on inherent hazard —
understanding that if we can prevent the hazard to begin
with,
then we don’t have to manage the risk.”
Learn more details, and how your company can participate in next year’s survey,
here.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Feb 11, 2021 1pm EST / 10am PST / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET