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UNEP Report: The Business Case for Knowing Chemicals in Products & Supply Chains

UNEP Report: The Business Case for Knowing Chemicals in Products & Supply Chains

October 2014 Mark Rossi UNEP Publications

Key messages:

  • Regulatory requirements, customer demands, media attention, non-governmental organization advocacy, product recalls, and market opportunities are driving companies to know more about the chemicals in their products and supply chains. The demand for increased transparency grows every day.
  • The use of CiP information systems demonstrates clearly the value of knowing about chemicals contained in products. They continue to enable and stimulate companies and entire product sectors to realize benefits, from achieving product safety to leading product innovation.
  • Most product sectors do not have sufficient information systems in place to enable the reliable exchange of chemical content information that is needed to meet current and future regulatory and customer demands.
  • Active strategies to know and act upon information on chemicals in products generate longterm value for companies, their shareholders, the public, and the planet.
  • Brands and retailers that are passive—reacting when compelled by crises or regulations— hold hidden liabilities of chemicals of concern in their products. In the past costs from these liabilities has run to the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, has tarnished brand reputation, and resulted in loss of market share and valuation.
  • From governments and consumers to retailers and brands, access to information and awareness of chemicals in products is driving companies and customers to prefer and select inherently safer alternatives, selections that make possible achieving the goal of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). 

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