A Safety leader
This key element builds on all the dedicated health and safety work Euro Chlor has been carrying out since it was formed in 1989 that you can that you can read about on our Technical & Safety pages. Our industry’s safety record has improved with reductions in process incidents and transportation accidents, but more still needs to be done as progress has slowed down in recent times.
- We will continue to strive for zero incidents within our industry.
- We will share our safety experience along our value chains. This means that everyone involved in handling and using/selling chlor-alkali can return home safely at the end of each day.
- We will also ensure that everyone in Europe can rely on the same high safety standards. This is because an accident in one place affects us all. We will collect data that can inform decision-makers, ensuring that chlor-alkali products coming into Europe are also subject to high safety standards.
These safety activities will also benefit Europe’s green goals as a safe industry does not release chemicals into the environment. Our new Mid-Century Strategy, with us as a safety leader, comes at an important time. Recent health crises show that the 21st century needs our products and a safe chlor-alkali industry more than ever.
Read about the KPIs as they are developed and updates on the priorities within this element here, including how Euro Chlor is developing innovative training tools using modern technologies to complement its traditional, paper-based, safety guidance.
Q. What is Euro Chlor’s contribution to the safety of all employees within the chlor-alkali sector?
Safety has always been the key priority for Euro Chlor.
Euro Chlor’s predecessor began as an association focussed on the exchange of safety experiences and drafting joint recommendations to improve the safety performance of its members. This work was enhanced further under Euro Chlor. We focus on collecting best practices of our members to improve health, safety and environmental performance and share them via comprehensive guidance documents. This sharing is not limited to the members but extends to all parties involved in chlor-alkali in Europe and the rest of the world. We organise workshops and share incident reports to further amplify these recommendations. Furthermore, we are developing sophisticated tools to improve the safety knowledge level of our members (videos, interactive safety games, etc.).
Q. How can we make chlor-alkali production even safer?
By continued measurement and unwavering commitment of all members to share data on safety performance, incident reports and lessons learned in order to improve our best practice guidance. This will keep our safety standards at the highest possible level.
Euro Chlor continues its efforts to share best practice information, proposing new methods to improve safety systems, and develop new training tools.
Q. How can we ensure that imported chlor-alkali-related products meet similar HSE requirements?
We are an active member of the World Chlorine Council, a global collaboration of chlor-alkali associations. As part of this group we address safety issues and share the collected knowledge with other global regions. Euro Chlor recommendations are being used by other nations across the globe to improve their safety, this means we try to lead by example.
Q. What has been achieved so far?
- Online safety training for over 100 member company colleagues to raise awareness on key topics (December 2020);
- A new recommendation on safe handling of chlor-alkali products is being shared with the European supply chain (March 2021);
Find out more on our annual progress in becoming a Safety Leader in our Industry Review…
