The European Responsible Care Award is a recognition for the chemical industry’s work to enhance safe chemicals management and achieve performance excellence. This year’s winners were announced last week during the annual Chemical Convention of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) in Helsinki.

Marco Mensink, director general of CEFIC: “This year’s awards demonstrate how companies are already implementing innovative solutions that we talk about in our Mid-Century Vision. Digitalizing our processes and value chain collaboration improves transparency and chemical safety, as demonstrated by several projects. Transforming waste into new raw material reflects our ambition as industry to be the recycler of the circular society.”

• Essenscia, the Belgian association for chemistry and life sciences industries won the National Associations Award for ‘Rethinking Chemical Logistics’. Essenscia worked together with other associations from the chemical transport and cleaning sector to digitalize the paper documents indicating if the chemical tanks have been properly cleaned. A digital file is now exchanged along the value chain and everyone has access to this information in real time and full transparency.
• Finnish Kemira won the Environmental Responsibility Award for its ‘Ferrous Sulphate Waste to Product’ initiative. After their supply of ferrous sulphate was interrupted few years ago, Kemira developed an innovative way of extracting it from an onsite landfill to continue producing their wastewater treatment solutions.
• Solvay received the Chemical Safety Award for its ‘Product Stewardship Management System’, a digital tool that helps all Solvay business units worldwide manage product safety and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Its unique feature is that all product safety-related requirements are combined in one comprehensive tool available in all regions.
• Finnish Neste took the Sustainable Workplace Award for its learning program ‘Way Forward to Safety’, which helped instill a culture of safety throughout the organization. As part of this program, Neste rolled out hundreds of workshops, e-learning and awareness raising activities, and have also developed crucial safety management processes.

Two runner ups, the national association Russian Chemists Union and Kiilto, received a special mention of the jury for their dedication to enhancing Responsible Care across Russia and for developing an intelligent heating system based on circularity, respectively.