Product Stewardship

Close Cooperation between Producer, Distributor and Customer

In their "Responsible Care initiative", the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) and the European Association of Chemical Distributors (FECC) have drawn up guidelines on the joint product responsibility of suppliers and distributors. The result: the "Product Stewardship concept". The idea behind this concept is as follows: distributors bear (joint) responsibility for the products they buy, store and supply to their customers. To ensure the desired high standards in the area of environmental protection and occupational safety, supplier, distributor and user or processing company need to work together closely and exchange the relevant information:

• The supplier is familiar with the chemical properties of the product and knows the details of the production process.
• The distributor handles a wide range of products and possesses in-depth knowledge of the market.
• The user knows the conditions under which the products are processed and the purpose for which the end product is used.

"Product Stewardship" means a commitment to cooperation along the entire production and supply chain as well as throughout the product life cycle - with the aim of passing on environmentally relevant and health-related data and ensuring responsible handling of the various products. As the leading European chemical distributor, Brenntag implements this concept to promote health, safety and environmental protection all over Europe.

By the way, Brenntag gets also involved to the efforts of the chemical distributors throughout Europe to optimize environmental- and health-protection. Brenntag employees have been playing an active role in all expert committees of the national associations of the chemical distributors and the European FECC federation as well as the cross-industry working groups for a number of years.