Chlorine Safety: A World-Wide Responsibility

Robert G. Smerko

TSEM 01/262

Euro Chlor Fifth Technical Seminar

A Sustainable Future for Chlorine
Improving Health, Safety and Environmental Performance

8 – 9 February 2001
Barcelona, Spain
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Robert G. Smerko, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Robert G. Smerko has been President of The Chlorine Institute Inc., since
February 1986, when the Institute initiated its move from New York City to
Washington, D.C. The Institute is a trade association of 240 members from
around the world whose businesses are involved in chlorine production,
distribution and/or use.

Prior to joining the Chlorine Institute, Dr. Smerko was president of the American
Wood Preservers Institute, based in suburban Washington. From 1978 to 1984,
he was public affairs director for the American Chemical Society in Washington.
He also previously held positions in Washington with G.D. Searle and Co. as
director of government affairs and with Legg Mason and Co. as vice president of
its Washington, D.C. Affairs Group. Earlier, he was involved in analytical chemical
research with Bethlehem Steel Corp.

Dr. Smerko earned a bachelor's degree from Moravian College in his native city
of Bethlehem, Palestine. He also has a master's degree in chemistry and a
doctoral degree in analytical chemistry, both from Lehigh University in
Bethlehem.

Since moving to the National Capital Area in the late 1960s, Dr. Smerko has
maintained an involvement in several professional organisations. Among these
are the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Association
Executives and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He
serves on committees of the Chlorine Chemistry Council of the American
Chemistry Council.

He was the founding organiser in 1992 of the international group which now is
the World Chlorine Council (WCC). He serves on the WCC’s Executive
Committee.

In 1997, Dr. Smerko was elected the first Honorary Member of Clorosur, an
association of South American chlor-alkali producers which he had helped to
organise.
Dr. Smerko is a member of the Capital Hill Club and of the Manor Country Club in
Rockville, Md. near his home. He and his wife, Barbara Kay are the parents of a
son and two daughters and they have five grandchildren.

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Chlorine Safety: A World-Wide Responsibility

Summary

Regardless of the meaning ascribed to “sustainability,” chlorine’s acceptance in

society continues to depend heavily on the ability of people to handle the chemical
safely, and a performance record that proves chlorine is being handled
responsibly. Before “sustainability” attained its current level of attention, and
before the calls to eliminate chlorine arose, Euro Chlor’s predecessor, the BITC;
the Chlorine Institute; and other regional chlor-alkali associations were
successfully producing technical and safety-related materials and encouraging
members to work safely.

The anti-chlorine events of the late 1980s, which persisted throughout the 1990s
and into the third millennium, have made it absolutely necessary not only to
continue the early work on chlorine safety, but to increase its intensity and to
expand the development of ironclad safety principles and a safety-minded culture
world-wide.

This paper discusses the importance of the Global Safety Team of the World
Chlorine Council and its mission, goals, functions, and organisation. It also
presents a summary and perspective on governmental and non-governmental
activity in the United States related to chemical safety issues, including the
development of national safety goals and safety performance measurement
programs, and terrorism and site security.

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Chlorine Safety: A World-Wide Responsibility

The theme of Euro Chlor’s Fifth Technical Seminar is certainly timely and important
considering the growing attention being given by governments and other
institutions to the subject of sustainability and sustainable development.

Within the title of my presentation, A Chlorine Safety: A World-wide Responsibility,

I have been asked to share with you the mission, functions, goals and action plans
of the Global Safety Team of the World Chlorine Council. Also, I have been
charged to carry out my task within the framework of the title for this conference, A
Sustainable Future for Chlorine Improving Health, Safety and Environmental
Performance.

For me, the request to speak on the Global Safety Team and to do it within the
required framework was very appealing. I currently function as the co-leader of the
Global Safety Team and am genuinely excited about its possibilities for meaningful
contributions to chlorine safety.

Sustainable Development

There are many issues involving chlorine that are related to sustainable
development. My comments will be directed at chlorine safety only. My major point
to make is that safe operations is the bedrock, the foundation, the base for
chlorine’s sustainability.

The continued use of chlorine first and foremost depends on whether its stewards
produce, distribute and use it safely. The public and its representatives must not
perceive that chlorine operations pose an unacceptable safety risk to society.
Therefore, we must look for and find ways to meet the ever-increasing
expectations of the public for safe operations involving chlorine.

Sustainable development has become the banner or mantra for policy makers
within international and regional government organisations, some national
governments, business organisations and major corporations and many private
non-government, non-business organisations to effect changes in how the world is
managed. Taking just a cursory look into what is happening around the world on
the subject, one easily can see that the globe is awash with organisations and
seminars, meetings and projects related to sustainable development and/or
sustainability.

Before I get into the accepted definition of sustainable development and what now
are considered to be its three essential components, I need to emphasise that this
new movement, or paradigm, or concept however you care to describe it gives the
chemical industry an opportunity to display its commitment to and the results of the
Responsible Care initiative.

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What is sustainable development?

The definition of sustainable development is globally recognised as meeting the

needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs. Also globally recognised is that there are three essential
components of sustainable development: Environmental protection, economic
prosperity and social equality and well-being. This definition of sustainable
development and the three components are becoming the major policy drivers for
change by governments in the manner in which they will allow the private sectors
to work and how private sectors are managing themselves to control their futures.

The idea of sustainable development has started a vast and fast-growing

movement to examine all institutions and their processes as to whether they are
sustainable, that is, can they function in the future as they either are or should be
functioning in the present regarding protection of the environment, economic
viability and social progress. The involvement of the world-wide chlorine enterprise
in the process is absolutely essential because what is emerging is an array of
criteria or rules for determining if an institution or its processes are sustainable. In
so doing, the thought leaders of sustainable development and sustainability are
attempting to define the environmental, economic and societal measures that will
determine which institutions should be allowed to operate. The entire chemical
industry, not only the chlorine segment, must seek to be ranked high on any
sustainability scale.

Keeping in mind the good that is intended for the world’s environment, economy
and society’s well-being, to me this is a risky undertaking. I believe it is risky
because the implementation and measurement of sustainable development, i.e.,
determining what is sustainable, is an attempt to build a global set of
environmental, economic and social values, when there is a vast array of
determinates of these values around the world. The concept of sustainable
development goes well beyond anything ever before attempted within legitimate
organisations. It is not unlikely that expectations will be raised beyond the
capability to deliver; that unintended consequences will be not recognised before
they occur and the consequences of failure could be large.

Nevertheless, the chemical industry must be engaged in sustainable development

processes with its own programmes, projects and discussions wherever the
opportunities present themselves. The industry must show that it is sustainable
within reasonable criteria for measuring sustainability. As of now, Responsible
Care, which is based on the concept of continuous improvement, fits neatly into the
concept of sustainable development. Hopefully, it will serve the industry well as the
thinking progresses on what is a sustainable enterprise within the definition of
sustainable development.

Chlorine Safety

Before I continue with my remarks on A Chlorine Safety: A World-wide

Responsibility, I want to be certain that there is no question in your mind about
what I mean by chlorine safety.

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In my mind, chlorine safety is a process and a culture. As a process, chlorine

safety means the production, distribution and use of chlorine is carried out in a
manner (including practices, procedures and equipment) that protects workers, the
community and the environment from harm by preventing chlorine releases. As a
culture, chlorine safety means those who are involved in the production,
distribution and use of chlorine are fully competent in their work assignments and
hold the belief that zero releases is the everyday work goal. Herein lies the
connection to the components of sustainable development. Safe operations protect
the environment, they prevent economic loss in the facility and the community and
society is protected as well.
Now that you have been exposed to sustainable development and sustainability, its
current importance and its relationship to chlorine safety, I will connect those items
to the work of the World Chlorine Council’s Global Safety Team.

The World Chlorine Council

The World Chlorine Council, the WCC, is an established global organisation of

trade associations that facilitates world-wide co-ordination of Responsible Care in
the use of chlorine chemistry; identifies and engages in strategic issues of common
interest; and ensures appropriate representation of the chlorine chemistry industry
before international bodies.

The World Chlorine Council, so named in 1995, started in 1992 as the organisation
known as the International Group of Chlorine Chemistry Associations, the IGCCA.
The purpose or mission of the IGCCA in 1992 was to develop a global strategy and
co-ordinate ways to address the growing anti-chlorine activities of Greenpeace.

The WCC now is comprised of the following associations whose participation

varies in intensity: Euro Chlor, The Canadian Chlorine Co-ordinating Committee,
The Chlorine Chemistry Council (USA), The Chlorine Institute (USA), The
Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance (USA), Clorosur/Abiclor (Brazil), The Vinyl
Institute (USA ), The European Chlorinated Solvents Association;, The European
Council of Vinyl Manufacturers, The Plastics and Chemical Industries Association
(Australia), The Japanese Soda Industry Association, The Korean Soda Industry
Association and The Russian Centre for Chlorine Safety. The WCC is awaiting the
participation of the China Chlor-Alkali Industrial Association and the Alkali
Manufacturers Association of India.

The WCC is managed by an Executive Committee consisting of the staff persons

in charge of each association and by a Governing Council made up of top
executives of several global chlor-alkali producers.

The WCC is organised to function as teams in four areas, with a fifth area just
starting. The four established team areas and their team goals are:

Science

 Identify and address scientific topics of importance.

 Support regional scientific strategies wherever possible.
 Develop global strategies to address health and environmental issues.

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Advocacy

 Have an effective and functioning, geographically representative, global

advocacy effort.
 Influence policy makers to make responsible and informed public policy
decisions.

Communications

 Provide support to UNEP POPs advocacy.

 Enhance local and national advocacy capabilities in selected developing
countries.
 Establish two-way mechanisms to ensure feedback on advocacy outreach

Safety

 Promote continuous improvement of safety performance in the production,

distribution, handling and use of chlorine

The fifth area is Sustainability and a team has been formed. The team’s goal is to
produce reports profiling the sustainability of the chlorine chemistry enterprise and
to maintain a presence in the global institutions forming around sustainable
development.

The organisers of this seminar and I want you to have a close look at the Global
Safety Team and its programme and projects for two reasons: first, I believe you
should know about the efforts being made and why they are important to the
industry and your future; and second, I want to convince you that you should want
to help the team carry out its mission and achieve its goals.

The effectiveness and success of the team’s work depends on a commitment by

everyone involved with chlorine, from the smallest of users to the top executives of
the largest chlorine producers. In short, chlorine safety is everyone’s job.

The Global Safety Team

The Global Safety Team was established to promote safe practices and to help the
world-wide producers, packagers, distributors and users of chlorine to continuously
improve their safety practices, with the target of zero releases and zero injuries
from any releases of chlorine. The members of the team and the others involved in
the World Chlorine Council believe the following to be true:

 Continuous improvement in chlorine safety performance world-wide is essential

for the sustainability of the chlor-alkali business and its world-wide customers
regardless of how sustainability is defined.
 It is practical and possible to achieve co-operation and co-ordination on chlorine
safety throughout the world.
 The work to be done, in order to be successful in this undertaking, can be

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carried out with existing personnel resources; however, pooled financial

resources may be needed later in its work.
 Success will only come from both a top-down and bottom-up commitment to the
target of zero releases and zero injuries.

The GST has decided to conduct its business in concert with, but not limited to, the
twice-yearly meetings of the Chlorine Institute. The Institute has been a gathering
place for safety discussions among its non-U.S. members, including other chlorine
associations, since the late 1980's, with increased emphasis since 1993.
Currently the active participants in the GST are members of the Chlorine Institute’s
Board of Directors who serve on the Institute’s International Committee of the
Board of Directors; representatives from member companies in Euro Chlor,
Clorosur/Abiclor, the Japan Soda Industry Association, the Korean Soda Industry
Association and Formosa Plastics; staff from the five associations, plus staff from
the Russian Centre for Chlorine Safety and the Canadian Chlorine Co-ordinating
Committee. The following corporations are actively participating in GST work: Dow
Chemical (USA), Occidental Chemical (USA), Bayer (Germany), Solvay (Belgium),
Carbocloro (Brazil), Formosa Plastics (Taiwan) and Hanwha Chemical (Korea).
Representatives, both members and staff, from all other chlor-alkali associations
are encouraged to participate. The next meeting of the GST will be held in New
Orleans, March 15, 2001.

The GST has identified and prioritised five areas of common interest for co-
ordinated activity to improve safety performance. Work on the first four is
underway. The fifth area identified by the Team, commonality of safety practices,
has been deferred because of the known, high degree of difficulty in achieving
agreement within associations on what constitutes a suitably safe practice, let
alone a best practice. Also, the Team was not convinced that the benefit to the
industry or the safety of the public would be in a reasonable relationship to the
effort and costs involved, if successful.

These areas of interest are as follows:

 Promotion and distribution of in-hand (already developed) safety materials

from WCC associations to those producers, packagers, distributors and
users of chlorine who would need such materials.
 Collection and sharing of information (reports) on chlorine-related incidents
and near-misses to help prevent a recurrence, especially those of an
unusual nature and/or with serious consequences.
 Advocacy with safety-focused non-government organisations and authorities
on chlorine safety issues to ensure the representation of chlor-alkali industry
interests, values and programmes in these forums.
 Collection of data on chlorine incidents from fixed facilities and in transpor-
tation and on-site injuries connected with such releases in order to track
whether continuous improvement in safety performance is being achieved.
 Development of common safety practices or best practices to be accepted
and used throughout the industry.

Work plans have been established for the first four areas. The work groups have
assembled and are working on their tasks.

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Chlorine Safety Promotion

The first of these work plans is on safety promotion from producer to customer.
The goal of this work plan is all chlorine producers, packagers, distributors, users
and other stakeholders have knowledge of and access to all safety literature
produced by WCC associations. At first glance, this may appear to be a fairly
straightforward project, but it is not. The work required to be successful is quite
extensive and requires the co-operation of the WCC member associations and the
member companies in the associations.
There are two significant issues that must be addressed to be successful with this
programme differences in languages and differences in safety practices. That there
would be difficulty because of language differences is not unexpected. That there
would be difficulty because of differences in safety practices among association
recommendations is not so obvious. Safety practices differ from country to country,
or between regions because of government requirements, varying approaches to
process safety management where there are equally safe options, evolution of
equipment and geographic differences.

The Team is addressing the safety practices issue first by having staff of Euro
Chlor and the Institute create a list of known differences between the safety
recommendations of the two organisations and to develop an approach to find
others that may exist. The language issue will be addressed first by conducting a
survey of GST members for their suggestions on how to solve this problem. The
GST welcomes suggestions from you on how to solve either one of these
problems.

The basic strategy being followed for this first area of interest is to promote the
availability of safety materials and deliver the promotional message through
crusaders identified in regional chlorine production facilities. The GST believes it
absolutely is necessary to have a committed (highly motivated) individual identified
in each facility to carry through on company commitments.

In addition to working out solutions to the two issues just mentioned, the work on
safety promotion includes the following tasks:

 Create lists of chlorine producers, packagers and users: The Institute is

working to create a global list of producers by region by requesting each
association to develop such a list which includes their members and the
non-members in their regions. Parallel to this effort, the Team needs to have
a way to identify producers not involved in any known chlor-alkali
association.
I would appreciate your help since Clorosur/Abiclor and the Institute have
the lead for the GST in the creation of the lists. The next step will be to have
the producers provide a list of their customers Bon a strictly confidential
basis so that regional lists can be compiled into a global list. These lists will
be used by the GST to implement its safety promotion programme. It is
anticipated that the lists will be used by other teams when they need help or
want to deliver a specific message.
 Design a programme for and identify crusaders among producers. This step

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will begin the first quarter of 2001, starting with the producer members of the
GST associations.
 Inventory the safety materials made available by the GST associations.
 Develop promotional materials for use by the crusaders.
 Develop a process for distribution of safety materials and a system for
tracking who has received materials.

The GST, being the ambitious group it is, eventually will look to finding the ways
and means to hold or otherwise sponsor hands-on safety training seminars.

I hope I have convinced you of the worthiness of this first area of work and if so, to
help support it by offering to help identify chlorine handlers, by encouraging your
company to identify a crusader and by providing input into addressing the language
and safety practices issues.

Sharing Safety Lessons

The second area where the GST is working is on sharing safety lessons learned
from incidents. Here the goal is to have WCC members and others access and
exchange useful information on chlorine accidents. The purpose is to prevent
recurrence of accidents by learning from what has already happened. Several
associations are doing this internally within established programmes.

Two strategies being followed to put this programme in place are: Design of a
system for identification and collection of accident information and putting current
and all future information reported onto the Global Information Exchange, the GIX.
If the Global Information Exchange is not familiar to you, please contact your chlor-
alkali association.

To make this programme work, a minimum of three steps must be completed

successfully. They include:

 Collect and assess WCC associations incident information gathering

programmes and establish consistent criteria for reporting incidents.
 Co-ordinate this activity with the work connected with establishing the
performance tracking programme. The lessons learned and performance
tracking programme may sound alike, but they are quite different. In the
lessons learned programme, information on an incident is to be provided in
enough detail and in a timely manner so that others may know of and learn
from the experience. For the tracking programme, data is collected to
construct periodic reports on the number, type and consequences of
incidents. More on the tracking programme is provided later.
 Get a buy-in from each association to participate in the information collec-
tion process. However, the GST will move forward as soon as there is
agreement on the criteria for reporting based on the participation of one or
more of the associations. The GST agrees that there are obstacles to
reporting certain incident information either on a timely basis or ever
reporting on the event. The GST also believes, however, that open sharing
of incident information is very helpful to achieving continuous improvement
and has the added tangible benefit of a public demonstration that we are

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attempting to meet our commitments to safety. The greatest benefits will be

derived if all WCC members and all their company members participate in
this programme.

Chlorine Safety Advocacy

The third area of interest for the GST is chlorine safety advocacy with safety-
focused organisations carried out through pro-active participation of the GST
where opportunities arise. The GST’s goal is to have regional and international
government and NGO fora recognise the WCC commitment to promote chlorine
safety and to continually improve safety performance. Our strategy is simple. Be
prepared and participate in regional and international fora on chemical process
safety.

The work required for success of this programme is the timely identification of
actions by the various organisations around the globe concerned with chemical
process safety. We need all WCC associations to monitor organisations with
concerns about chemical process safety and report into the GST. The monitoring
can best be accomplished if specific regional responsibilities are agreed to by
WCC members. The GST members are committed and are asking for your help as
well. A process will be established through the GIX to receive the input from the
WCC membership.

To be effective in these various fora, the GST must have advocacy materials on
safety programmes and safety performance. These materials will be developed
from the information received from the other three programmes run by the GST.

When the opportunities arise, national associations and their members will be
asked to assume an active role in whatever discussions are taking place that
involve chemical process safety or chlorine safety, or that might have an impact on
chlorine production, distribution and/or use. Currently, the GST, through the
participation of the Chlorine Institute, is engaged in an OECD project to develop
guidelines for public authorities and private groups to use to track chemical
process safety performance. During 2001, the Team will seek to define other
international safety activities in which the WCC should be involved. A likely
prospect is the revamping of the OECD guidelines for chemical process safety first
published in 1992.

The Institute will continue to lead the activity on safety advocacy and will continue
to seek the assistance of the Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention
Office (CEPPO) of the U.S. EPA. This Office is heavily engaged in international
safety matters and the Institute has a strong working relationship with CEPPO.

In the U.S. there continues to be a serious concern about terrorism and the
security of sites involved in chemical production and use. Because of chlorine’s
widespread use, there is a need for the Institute to be engaged which it is in policy
development in this area. I believe whatever is done in the U.S. will be closely
examined by other authorities around the world.

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We must continuously remind ourselves of the need to do whatever is necessary to

keep authorities and the public convinced that we can handle chlorine safely. Our
best arguments are based on an ongoing demonstration of dedication to the
improvement of performance accompanied by positive results.

Chlorine Safety Performance

The first three of the four areas of interest of the GST are most closely connected
with the ongoing demonstration of dedication to the improvement of performance.
Safety promotion through outreach from producer to user; collection and sharing of
incident information to help prevent recurrence; and engaging in discussions aimed
at improving safety performance all fall into the category of improving chlorine
safety performance. The fourth and last area to be addressed by the GST is the
actual measurement of chlorine safety performance.

We must keep reminding ourselves of what the world-wide chemical industry is

facing in the realm of public opinion, that being, very low, discouraging scores. This
fact alone should drive us to want to know on an industry-wide scale, what degree
of progress is being made as a result of our own programmes such as
Responsible Care and all the regulatory requirements that are in place. In the
U.S., regulators want to know if they are making a difference. OECD wants to know
if their 1992 guidelines have made an impact. As you might suspect, it will be
difficult for any one group to take credit for performance improvement.

The GST’s goal in this area is to show that safety performance globally can be
measured with a credible and publicly acceptable tracking system. While all of the
areas the GST has chosen to address present significant challenges, this area of
chlorine safety performance tracking may present the toughest challenge. Nowhere
today does there exist a system or method for tracking safety performance in the
chemical and end-user industries that is both credible and acceptable. As
previously mentioned, OECD is working on guidelines for setting up performance
tracking, rather than trying to settle on a specific methodology. In the U.S., there is
agreement across the key government agencies that are concerned with chemical
safety, i.e., DOT, EPA, OSHA and CSB (the Chemical Safety Board), that there is
no credible and acceptable programme in place. The Institute is involved with all
four agencies on how to arrive at what we all are seeking.

The world-wide industry needs a system to measure performance, but it cannot be

its own system in order to have the credibility and acceptability that is absolutely
essential. If that be the case, you might now ask, why is the GST spending time in
this area?

First and foremost, the chlorine enterprise needs to know what is happening
regardless of whether or not anyone else believes its data. Second, considering
the state of affairs of safety performance tracking in general, the chlorine sector,
given that only one chemical is involved, has a chance to demonstrate it can
devise a system that works and whose credibility can be verified.

The GST has set out to accomplish its goal by following these strategies:

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 Design and implement a common system for defining what data must be
reported; how the data will be collected; and how the data can be retrieved
by WCC members.
 Develop a common content and format for presenting the data to track
performance.
 Make the data accessible to the public.

The GST has identified several areas of work that need to be undertaken to imple-
ment the three major strategies. The Team first must collect and review the
existing tracking programme in place in the WCC associations. Obviously, the
Team needs to know what currently is being done so it may build on existing
programmes.

After assessing these programmes, the Team must define the criteria for
companies and/or associations to follow for reporting into the tracking system
incidents that occur and any other information that should be reported to assure
that the programme is credible and acceptable. While no final decisions have been
made, the following criteria are being considered for establishing what must
happen for an event involving the release of chlorine to qualify as one to be
incorporated into the global tracking programme.

A reportable chlorine incident is defined as a chlorine release that has any of the
following outcomes:

 Requires notification and/or reporting to an external agency. In the U.S., this

would be a release of chlorine to the environment in excess of the 10-pound
reportable quantity.
 Results in emergency response to a facility or transportation incident such
as a producer/distributor emergency response team; or a public emergency
response organisation such as the fire or police department or Hazmat
team.
 Requires community evacuation or sheltering-in-place.
 Results in an on-site injury or medical attention to the surrounding commu-
nity.
 Results in media knowing of or reporting on the release.

Achieving uniformity of reporting to measure safety performance is a significant

challenge for the Team. As the Team moves to set up the global tracking system, it
must be very much aware of the circumstances in each country or region that
impact the ability of a company or any organisation involved with chlorine to report
on an incident.

To have a global tracking system in place, the information must be collected and
housed in one location. Euro Chlor has agreed to be the manager of the
information to be collected under the two programmes involving incidents: the
performance tracking programme and the sharing of information/lessons learned
programme.

Discussions continue within the Team on the details of how the tracking
programme will be implemented. At this juncture, the Team is holding the opinion

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that each national or regional association should maintain its own collection and
data-housing programme in addition to participating in the global programme. In
any circumstance, there must be uniformity in the data collected and how the data
is presented to the public.

Let me return for a moment to work being done in the U.S. In addition to the
serious effort to develop a system to track chemical safety performance and
determine the impact public and private safety improvement programmes may be
having, there is an effort to establish national safety goals for chemical production
and use. The Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University
is conducting a Chemical Safety Assessment Programme. The programme
involves the development of a tracking system for the purposes stated. The
programme involves an initial and then ongoing assessment of chemical safety
performance. The programme was launched by a series of multi-stakeholder
roundtables. These roundtables, along with a multi-stakeholder steering
committee, in addition to providing input on how to track and measure
performance, also established a national safety vision and goal for the U.S. The
vision is reduce chemical process accidents to zero while building public trust
through community interaction. The goal is chemical incidents are zero; chemical
enterprises have earned the public’s trust; and public, government and facility
interactions improve safety and reduce risks.

The Institute has been and will continue to be a key participant as well as a
sponsor of the Chemical Safety Assessment Programme. Participation in such
activities along side of key regulators, safety activist groups, union representatives
and academicians presents an opportunity to make known the programmes and
commitments of not only the Institute, but the GST as well.

Achieving Success

The work taken on by the GST is by any measure difficult and challenging.
However, the WCC work in advocacy, science, communication and now,
sustainable development is equally difficult and challenging. In total, the WCC has
taken on a considerable set of responsibilities for chlorine chemistry and has
created significant, but hopefully realistic expectations.

For the GST, the formula for success is co-operation among the associations and
participation of their membership. The GST is looking forward to having each WCC
association member and potential members become full and active partners in the
GST. Being a partner means that all WCC members and companies agree to
commit to the goals in the four areas of interest and to share in providing the
needed resources.

Through the WCC and the GST, the producers, distributors and users of chlorine
have a first-ever opportunity to make and to demonstrate a world-wide safety
commitment to authorities and the public. Such a commitment should bode well for
us in the new paradigm of sustainable development.

The sustainability of the chlorine industry depends on the successes of this global
effort to promote safety practices along the chlorine use chain, to share

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experiences on incidents to help prevent recurrence, to engage in open

discussions with organisations concerned with safety, to track chlorine safety
performance in a credible and acceptable way and to openly share the results of
the performance tracking.

The GST needs your co-operation to be successful in its programmes. But, above
all else, everyone involved with chlorine is dependent on one another to have in
place the necessary practices and equipment to operate safely and to continuously
build a safety culture where no incidents are the only acceptable goal.

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