ChemStewards Celebrates 10 years of EHS&S Excellence

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates is pleased to announce ChemStewards®, its flagship environmental, health, safety and security (EHS&S) program, is celebrating 10 years of excellence in meeting the needs of small and medium-sized specialty chemical manufacturers.

"Ten years ago, our members asked for an EHS&S program that was tailored to meet their unique needs, and SOCMA granted that request by launching ChemStewards," said Dr. J. Holland Jordan, Managing Director of ChemStewards. "Since that time, SOCMA and its members have made significant improvements to the program, growing ChemStewards into an industry-recognized EHS&S management system that is now completely cloud-based. This dynamic program is constantly evolving and providing enhancements and tools our members can utilize to streamline and improve their EHS&S efforts."

Nation Ford Chemical is one of the first ChemStewards Certified Facilities that saw value in the program from the beginning. "Implementing a comprehensive management system that incorporated all of the required aspects of environmental, health, safety and security matters into one system just made practical and financial sense," said Phillip McCarter, Vice President of Nation Ford Chemical. "Being a small company, the three-tier approach provided the needed flexibility to allow us to start at Tier 1 and then be able to continuously improve toward Tier 3. Moreover, being the only EHS&S management system at the time that required outside auditing, we felt that this fact added a great deal of credibility to the system in the eyes of our customers. We believe being true to the core principles of ChemStewards is one of our best methods of keeping our employees and community safe while at the same time providing a key tool for attracting and retaining customers."

McGean Production Manager Bryan Shaffer says, "ChemStewards has provided support and networking that has helped us become a better manufacturer. ChemStewards has also continued to 'raise the bar' with forward thinking, to challenge us to improve in many areas, such as process safety. We congratulate the ChemStewards staff on the program's 10-year anniversary and thank them for their outstanding support."

A mandatory program for all SOCMA manufacturing members, ChemStewards continues to maintain a more than 98 percent compliance rate. Members also share their EHS&S efforts and best practices by entering SOCMA's Performance Improvement Awards Program, which had its largest number of entries in 2014.

One of the program's greatest accomplishments in its first 10 years is the launch of the ChemStewards Management Portal, which allows member companies to save time and money by having all ChemStewards and related EHS&S documents in a centralized, web-based repository. The portal was launched in October 2014 and has been a tremendous tool for SOCMA members, Jordan said.

In 2011, ChemStewards started a national meeting, where members come together and discuss process safety, operational excellence and other issues that impact their EHS&S efforts. In conjunction with the 2015 National Chemical Safety Symposium, SOCMA plans to host a 10-year anniversary reception to celebrate the program's achievements. More details about the symposium can be found here.

About SOCMA

SOCMA is the only U.S.-based trade association dedicated solely to the specialty chemical industry. Visit www.socma.com.

Contact:
Jenny Gaines
Senior Manager, Communications and PR
(202) 721-4123
gainesj@socma.com

SOURCE Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates