As a member of the American Chemistry Council, Sartomer Company is committed to abide by the guiding principles of Responsible Care^®. Since 1988, the U.S. chemical industry, through the American Chemistry Council, has implemented Responsible Care®, a voluntary program to achieve improvements in environmental, health and safety performance beyond levels required by the U.S. government. The program has resulted in significant reductions in releases to air, land and water, major improvements in workplace and community safety, and expanded programs to research and test chemicals for potential health and environmental impacts.

Responsible Care continues to strengthen its commitments and enhance the public credibility of the industry. New program enhancements adopted by the American Chemistry Council as a condition of membership include:

1) A Responsible Care Management System;
2) An independent third party certification of the management system to ensure appropriate actions are taken to improve performance;
3) Tracking and publicly reporting performance based on economic, environmental, health and safety, societal and product related metrics;
4) A Security Code that helps protect people, property, products, processes, information and information systems by enhancing security throughout the chemical industry value chain.

Improve performance in health, safety, security and environmental quality

The Guiding Principles -- the philosophy of Responsible Care^® -- outline each member company's commitment to environmental, health, security and safety responsibility in managing chemicals.

Responsible Care is moving beyond codes of management practices to achieve better EHS performance and obtain more business value for our members and Partners. The Responsible Care Management System (RCMS) replaces the current practice of applying six Codes (e.g., community awareness and emergency response, distribution, employee health and safety, pollution prevention, process safety and product stewardship) with a combined 106 management practices. Instead, relevant aspects of the existing Codes are subsumed into a RCMS that is based on benchmarked best practices of leading private sector companies, initiatives developed through the Global Environmental Management Initiative, International Standards Organization and other bodies, and requirements of national regulatory authorities.

Listen and respond to public concerns

Responsible Care companies view themselves as members of their communities. Working with community advisory panels, they communicate with neighbors about their operations and progress and their programs to protect the environment, respond to concerns about the facilities and work with local emergency responders to further improve community safety and health.

Assist each other to achieve optimum performance

Executive Leadership Groups meet so key executives from member companies can regularly share experiences and review progress in Responsible Care^®.

Company Responsible Care® Coordinators also meet to share experiences and review progress in Responsible Care^®.

There is also a Mutual Assistance Network, which focuses on direct networking between companies at different levels to assist in implementation of all the elements of Responsible Care^®.

Report their progress to the public

The new Responsible Care establishes a set of uniform industry wide metrics to measure individual company and industry performance through Responsible Care. The measures will enable member companies to identify areas for continuous improvement and provide a means for the public to track individual company and industry performance in an accessible and transparent way. The measures address performance across a broad range of issues including economics, environment, health, safety, security and products.

Sartomer and the American Chemistry Council performance can be viewed at

Management Systems Verification (MSV) has assisted in member company improvement by including appropriate third party involvement. The MSV process provided common methods for reviewing the systems being used by chemical companies to manage their Responsible Care activities. This process allowed for a critical assessment of a company’s Responsible Care activities by a team of industry peers and members of local communities. The process was designed to assist member and Partner companies in achieving new levels of environment, health and safety excellence and earning the public’s trust.  In April 1998, Sartomer completed their MSV for its corporate and two manufacturing sites.

Community Awareness and Emergency Response (CAER) promotes emergency response planning and calls for ongoing dialogue with local communities. It includes 19 practices committed to ensuring emergency preparedness and community right-to-know.  Sartomer openly communicates relevant, useful information to our neighbors, about our company’s activities and our safety, health and environmental protection programs. Our ultimate objective is to communicate on a two-way basis. We would like to find out what kinds of questions you have about our facilities, so we may address them. You may e-mail us with your questions. We will make every effort to respond in a timely manner.

Pollution Prevention commits industry to the safe management and reduction of wastes.  It includes 14 practices committed to managing hazardous wastes including characterization, handling, disposal, and their reduction.

Process Safety is a systematic approach used to operate and maintain our manufacturing facilities in a manner that emphasizes safety of the surrounding community, the general public, each employee and contractor, and the environment.  It includes 22 practices committed to preventing catastrophic incidents such as fires, chemical releases and explosions.

Distribution focuses on reducing employee and public risk from the shipment of chemicals and applies to the transportation, storage, handling, transfer and repackaging of chemicals.  It includes 21 practices committed to reducing the risk of accidents from the transportation and distribution of chemicals.

Employee Health and Safety protects employees and visitors at company sites.  It includes 18 practices committed to providing and promoting a safe and healthy workplace for employees, visitors and contractors.

Product Stewardship makes health, safety and environmental protection an integral part of designing, manufacturing, marketing, distributing, the sale of, recycling and disposing of products.  It includes 12 practices committed to managing the safe use and handling of chemicals. Sartomer conducts evaluations of our chemical products to assure that these products deliver their intended benefits, while protecting public health and the environment. A simplified flow diagram of the process in found through this link.

The Security Code became effective on July 1, 2002.  It analyzes threats, vulnerabilities and consequences with a required implementation date of 2005.  The U.S. Coast Guard will be issuing new regulations that will require certain chemical industry facilities to conduct security vulnerability assessments and submit them to the Coast Guard.  Because the Security Code is so comprehensive, the Coast Guard has approved the Code as an Alternate Security Plan under the Maritime Transportation Security Act.

The purpose of the Security Code is to help protect people, property, products, processes, information and information systems by enhancing security, including security against potential terrorist attack, throughout the chemical industry value chain. The chemical industry value chain encompasses company activities associated with the design, procurement, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, transportation, customer support, use, recycle and disposal of our products.

This Code is designed to help companies achieve continuous improvement in security performance using a risk-based approach to identify, assess and address vulnerabilities, prevent or mitigate incidents, enhance training and response capabilities, and maintain and improve relationships with key stakeholders. The Code must be implemented with the understanding that security is a shared responsibility requiring actions by others such as customers, suppliers, service providers, and government officials and agencies. Everyone in the chemical industry value chain has security responsibilities and must act accordingly to protect the public interest.

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