Sustainable Development

"I welcome the development of the Guiding Principles and Goals for the Sustainable Development, as an important step in helping to put the chemical industry on the path to sustainable development.

"In terms of Guiding Principles for Sustainable Business Practice, I am particularly pleased to note that you have identified the encouragement of more sustainable patterns of production as a priority for the sector, something my own Department is striving to achieve together with encouraging more sustainable patterns of consumption.

"However, to be effective, such frameworks need to establish clear and meaningful goals against which performance can be monitored. It is in this connection that I would query the Goals for Sustainable Development. For example, case study material from the Government funded Envirowise programme suggests that companies in the chemicals sector are already reducing their water use by between 30 per cent and 80 per cent through simple, low-cost measures (compared with the CIA's goal of 20 per cent by 2010). It would also be useful for you to clarify a date by which you expect the database of chemical substances marketed in the UK to come online.

"Nevertheless, this is an important and welcome commitment and one on which I hope the CIA will build, perhaps by developing a fuller sustainability strategy for the chemical industry, but certainly monitoring progress against these principles and goals, as other sectors have done, and reviewing them in the light of experience of performance."

Margaret Beckett
Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
www.defra.gov.uk

Professor Adisa Azapagic

"I welcome the CIA's sustainability guiding principles and goals which show the CIA's resolve to taking a leading role in the industry's response to the challenge of sustainable development. However, although a good starting point, the real challenge for the industry lays ahead in translating these principles into common practice and taking a more proactive role in incorporating environmental and social concerns into its economic activities."

Adisa Azapagic, Professor of Sustainable Engineering
Centre for Environmental Strategy
University of Surrey
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/eng/ces/

Tom Burke

"The challenge to the chemical industry in the 21st Century is to define the contribution it is making to the transition the world must make to sustainable development. Setting out the sustainable development principles is a good start and builds on the successful effort to raise the industry's environmental performance driven by the Responsible Care programme. But it is now vital for the industry to move beyond the text and to ensure that over the next two years the application of these principles has led to demonstrable changes in behaviour."

Tom Burke CBE
Visiting Professor, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine

William Coupar

"The chemical industry is making a good start with these goals and employers and the workforce now need to work together to involve everyone in building the culture that will ensure the full set of sustainable development goals can be effectively delivered."

William Coupar, Director
Involvement and Participation Association
http://www.ipa-involve.com

Phillipa Foster Back

"The Chemical Industries Association is leading the way in setting out Guiding Principles for Sustainable Business Practice for its members. This is a vital role for a trade association to play in acting as the intermediary between the industry and its public, the government and other interested parties. It is part of the wider debate demonstrating that the industry takes its societal responsibilities seriously.

"We are supportive of the CIA in this role and hope that other trade bodies may follow their example."

Phillipa Foster Back, Director
Institute of Business Ethics
www.ibe.org.uk

Dr Ian Graham-Bryce

"There is much that is good in the CIA goals, especially in the quantitative footnotes, but an opportunity has been missed with the guiding principles, which place significantly more emphasis on the social and economic elements of sustainability than on the environmental. I welcome the plan to draw up a database of products, which is in line with recommendations in the RCEP Chemicals Report, but I would also like to see a clearer commitment to developing products that would be safer or more environmentally benign."

Ian Graham-Bryce CBE
Principal Emeritus, University of Dundee and member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

Digby Jones

"The chemicals industry has a tradition of taking its social and environmental responsibilities seriously. We all increasingly expect high standards of corporate behaviour and this strategy is a welcome sign of business commitment to meet that challenge."

Digby Jones, Director General
Confederation of British Industry
www.cbi.org.uk

Charles Laroche

"Unilever is deeply committed to sustainable development and is engaged in a major initiative in the European Soaps and Detergents Industry Association. Unilever welcomes initiatives on the part of its suppliers in the field of sustainable development. Unilever believes that this is an ambitious programme and will be a signal achievement if delivered upon. We would urge the CIA to extend it to the rest of the European chemical industry."

Charles Laroche, Vice-president, External Relations
Unilever Home and Care Products
http://www.unilever.com

Jonathon Porritt

"Forum for the Future warmly welcomes the new Guiding Principles and Goals for Sustainable Development from the Chemical Industries Association, and commends the leadership that the CIA is showing in this critical area. Its members must now get behind this initiative with real conviction if we are to see the kind of improvements in both performance and reputation that are now so urgent"

Jonathon Porritt, Programme Director
Forum for the Future
www.forumforthefuture.org.uk

Baroness Young

"We very much support your initiative but really regret that the environment hasn't merited a separate principle of its own but comes under safe products and operations. "We think it would have merited a separate principle considering the actual potential impact of the industry on the environment. We would like to press you to refine the principles further to include something on reducing environmental impact. On the goals, we would make the following comment:

Resource use - we commend these targets.
Environmental burden - We are positively engaged with the industry on the development of environmental burden scales. Your focus is sectoral: the Agency will focus on site specific impacts. Our initial work will report at the end of this year and an Agency discussion on implementation options will follow.
Products - This is a positive action. It would be good for the CIA to provide leadership for the whole industry so that the database covers all relevant chemicals and not just those of member companies.

"I think in overall terms we have to be a bit mealy mouthed on this one, commending the industry's responsible approach through this initiative and being pleased to see the industry adopting the resource use and environmental burden targets, the achievement of which will be of benefit to the environment and people, while still wishing to talk further to you on a separate environmental principle."

Barbara Young
Chief Executive, Environment Agency
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/

Brendan Barber

"These are challenging goals and rightly so but the trade unions look forward to their full implementation and to achieving continuously improving employment standards within the chemical industry."

Brendan Barber
General Secretary, Trades Union Congress
http://www.tuc.org.uk/

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