Supervision from the top is necessary, Matthews says, because compliance
with REACH by U.S. businesses will require executives to make decisions that
will significantly affect their “product selection, exports, suppliers and cus-
tomers and use of products by customers.” Those businesses that fail to pre-
register their products with the ECA in the six-month window between June
and December of 2008 risk losing their phase-in status during the subsequent
authorization period. If that happens, their products cannot be brought to
market, because continued production or import of chemicals and substances
that are not preregistered will be illegal. The ramifications don’t end there,
however. Your substance only needs to be listedas a candidate for blacklisting
under REACH for it to lose status as a marketable product on a global level. In
such cases, companies need to have alternative products ready to go.
One good thing about the preregistration process is that you are not required
to provide every piece of data about your substances for long-term registra-
tion. To begin, you only need the name of the substance, its chemical abstract
and European inventory numbers, and range of production volume. Each
chemical product or substance will be given one registration number under
REACH.
Registration is not the only process involved in complying with REACH, how-
ever. For example, those companies that produce or deal in common bleach,
which is used in products as diverse as paper, makeup, and cleaning supplies,
must also provide their customers with appropriate compliance documenta-
tion, conduct testing based on foreseeable use-case scenarios, and share
resulting information with others in the industry so that they, too, can con-
duct testing.
The process by which multiple producers of the same substances share data
is both facilitated and formalized when they gather together in substance
information exchange forums (SIEFs). This collaboration will enable them to
facilitate registration by compiling existing information (such as health risks,
toxicity, test data, controls, and so forth), conducting studies and exposure
scenarios, and resolving chemical classifications. Collaboration on this
level requires some serious cooperation. And also merits extreme caution:
Participating companies must avoid antitrust complications pertaining to
the exchange of information or the making of agreements that may prevent,
restrict, or distort competition. Beyond participation in SIEFs, two or more
manufacturers or importers can choose to band together in consortia and
handle their registrations jointly. Although such arrangements may facilitate
compliance, they should also be reviewed carefully for potential antitrust
issues.
The phenomenal effort required to participate in SIEFs, in conjunction with the
sustained costs and effort required for REACH registration and evaluation, may
push some companies to sacrifice pre-registration for some of their products,
232 Part III: Going Green
