ICC
‘Responsible Care’ is an initiative for chemical industry and a voluntary commitment, which encourages chemical industry to raise the standards in safety, environment & occupational health & management, to win greater trust from the community. The workshop was conducted for complete training and familiarisation with Responsible Care program to GPCB officials. The workshop was enthusiastically welcomed by the GPCB officers and was attended by more than 200 GPCB senior officials from all over Gujarat making the event a grand success. Some senior officers from Maharshtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) also attended the workshop to understand about Responsible Care and how a state pollution control board can help the industry in adopting it.
The workshop was conducted by Mr. R. R. Gokhale, Secretary General, ICC. Mr. Vivek Shetty, Chairman, Western Region – ICC welcomed the guests and delegates with a brief about ICC. He appreciated serious initiatives by Mr. Ravi Kapoor, President - ICC, for the successful programme. He also highlighted the values and potentials of global chemical industry a prime factor in human life. He mentioned that chemical industry is a “Catalyst of Growth”, but has more challenges like environment, health and safety compliances along with other advantages. He also emphasised that it is the responsibility of all of us including stakeholders to save the ‘Mother Earth’.
Mr. Daniel Roczniak, Senior Director of American Chemistry Council had specifically flown in from Washington DC - USA for this event. He detailed about the evolution of Responsible Care globally and the milestones achieved. In his presentation Mr. Roczniak highlighted the growth of Chemical industry along with global economy and how Responsible Care has evolved to present status since inception in Canada in 1985 in response to public concerns about the chemical industry’s operations and products. He also highlighted how Responsible Care can help and provide a better opportunity in building relationship with the society which has been adopted by number of countries across the world.
Mr. Vijay Bukkawar, Director, Responsible Care & SHE, ICC made a presentation on Responsible Care: "A Globally Accepted Template for Sustainability & Environment Management.” He explained how Responsible Care is a better culture and standard for growth. He stated that Responsible Care is perhaps the only standard that deals in detail, about product safety as an essential element of Life Cycle approach. He further gave overview about inception of Responsible Care, its guiding principles and Responsible Care ethics and how Indian chemical industry has included CSR and Nicer Globe as a part of Responsible Care.
Mr. Arvind Agarwal, Additional Chief Secretary, Forests & Environment Department, Government of Gujarat & Chairman, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, the ‘Chief Guest’ of the day, delivered the keynote address. He informed the audience about the conceptualisation of Responsible Care workshop for GPCB officials. He expressed his pleasure about one-day symposium onResponsible Care, which was organized on 18th August 2017 at Ahmedabad having received an overwhelming response from the industry with quality participation of the CEO’s of more than 40 leading Companies of Gujarat. Since it has been decided to implement Responsible Care across the chemical industry in Gujarat, an educative programme about Responsible Care for GPCBofficials is the need of the hour, which would guide them, what exactly the Responsible Care is all about and how it works and shall be useful in controlling the pollution and other aspects related to chemical industry. Mr. Agarwal said that, “It is most important to note that Responsible Care is a voluntary system of managing the chemicals by the industry and anything which is voluntary, which is not compulsory by the law, has greater acceptability amongst the people.” He thanked ICC and Mr. Daniel Roczniak for this initiative. He did highlight that GPCB is well- known for its technical aspects and the work done by them as one of the strongest department in implementing the regulations.
GPCB is planning to make a policy that a chemical industry with a turnover of INR 250 Crore will be persuaded to adoptResponsible Care within 5 years of their registration as a signatory, which would be an annual reporting and to reduce the pollution level by at least 10% every year. He also propounded that as there is no statutory law or policy for it, the government can move a policy to adopt it in Gujarat state. He added that we should not confine ourselves to laws enforced but also look forward to what people expect from us.
He expressed his concern that across the country there are only 49 companies holding the Responsible Care logo, out of which only 16 are in Gujarat. He condemned this lack of pro-active approach and lack of responsibility on the part of chemical industry. He also said that if Canada took the lead to start the Responsible Care programme because of the worst disaster in human history that occurred in Bhopal-India, is it not our responsibility to be a part of that program seriously? He confidently saidGPCB and ICC have proposed to work together on this, which shall bring the change in situation substantially.
Mr. Agarwal informed that GPCB has taken a decision to organize 12 awareness programs of Responsible Care in the different parts of the state to spread the awareness and encourage the industry to adopt it. GPCB officers need to support this awareness program, where they will be directly involved in organizing such programmes and GPCB has also sanctioned fund forit. He was positive that having taken such steps GPCB can set a benchmark for other state pollution boards in the country.
Mr. H. S. Karangle, Director General, ICC, while proposing a vote of thanks, appreciated outright support of Mr. Arvind Agarwalfor this initiative and Mr. Daniel Roczniak for being the fantastic facilitator since 2008-09 and said that “Self-Control is the best Control.” If Chemical industry has to survive for a long run, then it is necessary that it voluntarily adopt the Responsible Care. He thanked the speakers of the day who travelled to Gandhinagar from different cities to make presentations exclusively forGPCB officials.
During second session Mr. Roczniak made a presentation giving an overview of Responsible Care and explaining its key elements. It was followed by the presentation on “RC Logo Audit Procedure” by Mr. Vipin Doshi, Advisor, Responsible Care-ICC, who thoroughly explained the procedure of audit before an organization is awarded the Responsible Care Logo to be used. He began with clarifying the difference between the RC Audit and other audits. He said that Responsible Care Audits finds gap between the prescribed and practiced procedure unlike the other, who verify and just match with what is written.
The session continued by presentation from Mr. Trimbak Hote, as “Monitoring Under Responsible Care”, who explained the validity of the Responsible Care logo, which is for 3 years and how they have to monitor within the period. He said that though this is a voluntary programme, once committed to Responsible Care, it doesn’t remain voluntary. He also explained theResponsible Care governance to the audience, about the sustainability committee, under which there are directors & advisers and a large Panel of Auditors. He added that once Responsible Care logo is awarded to an Industry, there are certain conditions to be fulfilled. The company should take the actions towards improvement suggested by the auditors. They must share the best practices and any innovation or initiative that the company has taken during the implementation of Responsible Care, should be highlighted. The company must report any incidents whether it is fatality or major accidents, environmental release or any violations. One of the important actions is that company has to submit its Key Performing Data (KPI) every year to ICC. He concluded his presentation explaining the KPI in detail.
Mr. Allywn Crasto, Head - Transportation & Distribution Safety, South Asia, BASF India Limited, made the next presentation on“Online Monitoring of Hazardous Waste Transportation -The Nicer Globe Way”. He said that we need to show to society and the community that how we really care by becoming the participants of Responsible Care and also showing the other chemical industries some tangible benefits coming out of it. He also gave the details of Nicer Globe and how it works towards monitoring the transportation of hazardous cargo.
Mr. Namitesh Roychoudhary, Vice President, PTSE & Capital Investment India, Lanxess India Pvt. Ltd. made a presentation on“Responsible Care in Global Perspective with a Particular Reference to Environment Management”. He focused on the important aspects of Responsible Care and explained thoroughly about the Responsible Care global charter. He also defined 6 codes of Responsible Care, in which ‘Pollution Prevention Code’ is the most important in the management of environment and the security code, which is to be implemented by 2018. He explained all codes giving examples of LANXESS and the tools and solutions the company has adopted to comply with six codes.
At the end of the second session there was a panel discussion along with senior GPCB officials, where GPCB officials raised their queries related to productivity of the training, non-compatibility. Their questions were addressed by Mr. Vijay Bukkawar and Mr. H. S. Karangle. Further the questions were for Mr. Crasto that whether Nicer Globe will be effective being voluntary and how GPS tracking system has helped them? Mr. Crasto answered that Nicer Globe will be much more effective if it becomes mandatory.
The third session started where Mr. Daniel Roczniak addressed the audience, talking about the topic “Responsible Care – A Global Driver for improvements in environment management”. He focused majorly on ICCA performance data and explanation on how International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) and American Chemistry Council works, He further explained Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) mapping.
Mr. Alok Chandra’s presentation was next on the topic “Responsible Care as a tool to Change Culture in Environment Management”. He made his presentation with answering the questions like, Why is Responsible Care program necessary? What ICC is doing to promote Responsible Care? And what GPCB can do? The presentation was interesting and it explained howGPCB officials are already following some of the principles of RC in their day-to-day work.
Mr. P.M.C Nair, Executive Director, Thirumalai Chemicals Ltd., made detailed presentation about his company that how was company started in 1973, with numerous ups & downs and how they came over the hardships and ire faced from the residents in the vicinity. He talked about the negative as well as positive aspects of the company. Also narrated the interesting story of how their journey with Responsible Care began and what innovative things they did for the welfare of society, for productivity and forthe safety of human health as well as environment and how they were successful in changing the perception of community after implementation of Responsible Care seriously.
It was followed by another panel discussion with senior GPCB officials and the queries from GPCB officials were, which is the stage at which a company/industry gets a Responsible Care logo? What is the validity of Responsible Care logo? Answering that Mr. Vijay Bukkawar said that if a company fulfills 80% criteria of management practices, then it is a good level to getResponsible Care logo & the validity is 3 years.
The event concluded on a good note by delivering vote of thanks and honouring the speakers and ICC officials with mementos by GPCB.
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