7. A new paradigm for chemicals management?

These approaches, based on weighing the costs and benefits of precautionary action to reduce exposure against the time, cost and uncertainty involved in single sub-stance toxicity testing and risk assessments, have also been used by international agreements that address common sea or river basins. Their main objective has been to reduce overall chemical loads (or "dose"), starting with priority substances for which there is already sufficient toxicity data to cause concern. For example, a 1990 Ministers’ Declaration committed European governments to reducing the inputs from rivers and estuaries to the North Sea of a group of 36 toxic chemicals to less than 50% of their 1985 levels by 1995; total in-puts of dioxins, mercury and cadmium had to be reduced by 70%. More recently, the 1995 Fourth Ministerial Conference in Esbjerg, Denmark, on the Protection of the North Sea, committed signatory states to ending all discharges, emissions and losses of hazardous substances within 25 years (Box 8). Some of the main national and international chemical reduction initiatives are shown in Box 9.

From Products to Services. As users of chemicals do not want the chemical "products" as such, but just the "services" that their chemical properties bring, some chemical suppliers of solvents or pesticides, for example, are beginning to sell "degreasing services" or "pest management services" rather than just solvent or pesticide pro-ducts. This is similar to the change in focus from products to services in other sectors such as energy and water where companies are now selling energy or water services, including demand-side management measures, rather than just of energy or water. This shift in focus from products to services can transform the relationship between chemicals, profits and the environment because the chemical it-self shifts from being the source of profit to being a cost item for the chemical supplier. The chemical becomes part of a wider package of added-value services, including greater responsibility on the supplier for the chemical’s safe use and related equipment. This increases the incentive on the supplier to reduce both the quantity and hazards of the chemical, per unit of service delivered, and to increase its durability by, for example, recycling. This can provide a "triple dividend": one for the customer, one for the supplier and one for the environment. Considerable innovation is needed to expand this shift from products to services beyond the solvents and pesticides parts of the chemical industry (Stahel, 1998).

Voluntary programmes. Chemical risks are already being reduced through a number of voluntary industry initiatives. For example, companies in The Netherlands have initiated voluntary reduction programmes via agreements with the regulatory authorities. In 1989, they introduced a Control Strategy for reducing emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from industry, small businesses and households. The Strategy envisages a reduction of 63%

in emissions by 2000 compared to 1981 levels, via reduction plans containing over 100 separate measures. Within the frame-work of the OECD’s Risk Management Programme, companies producing certain brominated flame retardants have voluntarily agreed to stop their production. An EEA review of voluntary agreements (EEA, 1997) concluded that the Dutch chemical industry scheme has been environmentally effective and has encouraged the development of environmental management systems.

The EEA review concluded more generally that most other agreements studied could not be evaluated because there was no monitoring data or consistent reporting. Voluntary agreements seemed to be of most use as complements to other policy measures such as regulations and taxes.

Meanwhile, a "Responsible Care" programme, promoted by the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC, 1996), has been adopted in 21 European countries. This programme encourages the cross-fertilisation of ideas and best practices. The programme, based on the original Canadian initiative, is designed to improve the chemical industry’s health, safety, environmental and quality performance, as well as communications with the public concerning products and plant operations. However, participation by employees and unions in the responsible care programmes seems to be limited (ICEM, 1997), even though some research shows union representatives to be more knowledgeable about chemicals regulations than their employers (HSE, 1997).

Even outside formal voluntary programmes, business can anticipate the need to reduce risks from conventional chemicals. For example, the increased awareness of the hazards of fossil fuel combustion and associated chemical feedstocks is encouraging some businesses to develop other raw materials based on the "soft" chemistry of agricultural products (von Gleich, 1991), an industry which was developing in the USA in the 1930s before the oil industry grew to become the dominant source of chemicals (Hale, 1934). However, not all "soft" chemistry feedstock and products, such as those described in Box 11, will necessarily be less harmful than those based on oil. A full life-cycle assessment is needed for the evaluation of alternatives (EEA, 1998c).

Improved public and consumer information. Information is playing an increasingly important role in controlling chemical pollution, both in support of specific regulations and taxes, and as a stand-alone policy tool. For example, the EU’s "Seveso" Directive on Hazardous Installations obliges employers to provide information to the nearby public. The EU Classification and Labelling Directive promotes the provision of clearer product information. The proposed European Polluting Emissions Register, to which the public shall have access under the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive, by 2002, will provide chemical release data from production facilities on a three-yearly basis. Some European countries (Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK) already have some provision for public access to chemicals data. A UNECE Convention on public participation and access to environmental information was agreed in 1998, and this will further encouragethe provision of chemical information to the public.

The OECD has published guidance on the Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) (OECD, 1996) which will help to establish emissions inventory and public right-to-know programmes. Experience with the US Toxics Release Inventory in the USA shows that it can stimulate reductions in toxic chemical emissions both directly and via stimulus to voluntary actions, such as the successful "33/50" chemicals-reduction programme of the US EPA, which has led to a more than 50% reduction in emissions of 33 hazardous chemicals (OECD, 1997a). The OECD guidelines on PRTR are being promoted under the IFCS programme, with support from UNITAR and UNEP.

Another type of information tool is the Chemical Product Register in Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden, which can be particularly useful in tracking chemicals contained in consumer products (KEMI, 1994).

Finally, general information for the public, particularly chemical employees and consumers, is extensively produced throughout the EU and elsewhere, such as by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS, 1996; UNEP, 1997). For ex-ample, IPCS, in co-operation with the EU, has produced over 1,300 Chemical Safety Data Cards and over 200 Pesticide Data Sheets to help reduce the risks of handling chemicals at work.

The EEA has produced a guide on Environmental Risk Assessment, Approaches, Experiences and Information Sources (EEA, 1998b).

There is as yet little data on the effectiveness of information provision in Europe on changing consumer behaviour towards chemicals, but some evidence on benzene in petrol (Fouquet, 1997) suggests that it can be effective, particularly via the mass media.

Use of economic instruments. In 1993, the EU’s Fifth Environmental Action Programme recommended an increased use of economic instruments to help implement the "polluter pays" principle and the incorporation of environmental "external" costs, such as water pollution, into market prices, via taxes.

"Externalities", which are the environmental and social costs of economic activity that are not borne by producers and users, and therefore not included in the market price of their products, can be substantial (EEA, 1996). For example, the "externalities" of the transport sector have been estimated at around 4% of EU GNP (Maddison, 1996) and attempts are now being made to "internalise" these into prices (ECMT, 1998). The main categories of the "external" costs of chemicals which, apart from pesticides (Pearce, 1997), have yet to

be evaluated, are summarised in Box 12. Although monetary evaluation of some externalities is controversial, it can help to provide a basis for the incorporation of these social costs into the market price of chemicals via environmental taxes. Current candidates for eco-taxes on particular chemicals at the Member State or EU level, based on the likely size of their "externalities", include heavy metals, chlorinated products, POPs, fertilisers and pesticides (DETR, 1997; RSPB, 1998).

Environmental taxes can be very effective if they are well-designed and form part of a package of measures, including the use of tax revenues to stimulate actions to reduce the use of a substance (EEA, 1996). Various European states already impose taxes on pesticides, fertilisers, ozone-depleting substances, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, chlorinated solvents (e.g. on tetra-chloroethylene, trichloroethylene and dichloromethane in Denmark) and toxic wastes, as well as on leaded petrol and high-sulphur diesel fuel in several European countries. The use of taxes to "internalise" the social costs of chemicals into market prices, combined with other risk management measures, will encourage the more "eco-efficient" use of chemicals (WBCSD, 1996; OECD, 1997b).