The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) announced today that 23 member facilities are now exceeding key ChemStewards benchmarks, qualifying them for the Excellence Tier – the program's highest ranking.
Six facilities are new to the Excellence Tier:
- Baker Hughes – Bayport, TX, facility
- Dixie Chemical Company, Inc. – Pasadena, TX, facility
- ESCO Company LLC – Muskegon, MI, facility
- Lonza, Inc. – Mapleton, IL, and Rockland, ME, facilities
- Strem Chemicals, Inc. – Newburyport, MA, facility
"It is a great honor to welcome these six facilities to our Excellence Tier," said ChemStewards Managing Director Dr. J. Holland Jordan. "Our ChemStewards member facilities are constantly striving to improve their EHS&S performance by implementing, reviewing and enhancing their processes to a point where they not only meet but surpass industry standards. We commend them for their efforts to achieve this outstanding ranking."
ChemStewards is an industry-developed EHS&S program designed for the specialty chemical industry. It's based on a three-tier system with key performance requirements per tier with increasing levels of difficulty. Tier One is known as Fundamental, and Tier Two is Enhanced Performance – the standard tier for ChemStewards participants. To qualify for Excellence, or Tier Three, facilities must commit to core principles, complete security requirements, meet specific metrics obligations and requirements, have at least one documented management review meeting and complete a third-party verification of management systems at the Enhanced Performance (Tier Two) level.
To maintain their ranking, facilities must sustain EHS&S performance metrics at or above the Excellence criteria.