Enhesa product compliance checklists

EHS laws and regulations rapidly spreading around the globe has led to growing demand for user-friendly, up-to-date and comprehensive tools.

Place products on global markets with confidence

The dramatic growth of product-related EHS laws and regulations rapidly spreading around the globe has led to growing demand for user-friendly, up-to-date and comprehensive tools to allow companies to meet these new requirements, and designed to enhance corporate global product stewardship initiatives. Recent enforcements cases indicate that the challenges of ensuring products comply with EHS regulations are widespread. In just one example, a recent study conducted by the Swedish chemicals agency found concentrations of lead exceeding EU legal limits in 22 per cent of imported consumer electronics and toys. In this case, the offenders were reported to the police.

Enhesa’s Product Compliance Checklists fill the demand for a tool to check product compliance, which is a key component of a company’s global product environmental regulatory compliance assurance system. This tool is a just one part of Enhesa’s full suite of Product Stewardship Services, developed over the past 15 years drawing on our experience helping international businesses to anticipate, understand and comply with global product-related environmental requirements.

Overall, these services form a six-step approach to product compliance aimed at the full complement of professionals responsible for global product stewardship, including product managers, product designers, business-line managers, market researchers, research institutes, and companies producing or selling electrical and electronic products or components.

Enhesa’s Product Stewardship Services constitute a proven methodology to help bring products to market in compliance with local environmental requirements, making the best use of the regulatory challenge to expand clients’ markets, and are built from our knowledge and project experience in over 100 countries on all six populated continents. The widest range of product types are supported, from personal care and cosmetic products to household products, from pharmaceuticals to medical devices, from vehicles to aircraft and from electrical and electronic products to power stations.

Enhesa’s Product Compliance Checklists are specifically designed to meet the broadest user base needs in any given company placing products on a given market, including the research and development and product design teams, those engaged in sourcing materials and components upstream in the supply chain, and those responsible for ultimately placing the products on the specified market, by addressing the key issues and questions these user communities must contend with.

Issues covered

The Product Compliance Checklist allows the user to review products at any stage of their development and placement on the market to determine if the product will, or does, meet the covered regulatory requirements in the given country or jurisdiction. The Checklist also helps manufacturers to take the appropriate measures to ensure products will pass environmental regulatory muster in the market in which it is, or will be, sold. The Checklist covers:

  • relevant material restrictions and bans
  • performance criteria the product has to meet (e.g., energy efficiency, water use)
  • packaging and labelling requirements
  • obligations to provide user information
  • product notification/registration before placement on the market
  • requirements to manage/recover the product at end of life.

In developing each Product Compliance Checklist, Enhesa researches and identifies all pertinent regulatory requirements applicable to industry in the country for ten thematic areas, including: General Product Environment Policy, Product Design, Marketing Conditions, Marketing Facilitator (e.g. eco-labels), Distribution, End-of-Life Disposition, New and Existing Chemicals Classification/Notification, Packaging & Labelling, Use and Marketing Restrictions and Prohibitions, and Material Safety Data Sheets.

Efficiency in use, ease of integration into existing ERPs

The Checklists allow the user to screen out questions that do not apply to the review in question before starting.  Each question is accompanied, as appropriate, by a related Guide Note with further information to allow a fuller appreciation of what constitutes compliance or the necessary steps to take in order to determine compliance. Each question is also accompanied by the regulatory citation from which the requirement is derived, with a hyperlink to the text of the requirement to facilitate consultations of the applicable law or regulation.

Enhesa’s Product Compliance Checklists are delivered in MS Excel.  Enhesa can also provide the Checklists in other formats or assist in uploading the information into management information systems and enterprise resource programs customers may already be using.

Given the large diversity of product regulations, the tool is developed for product families.  Enhesa opted to use the GS1 Global Product Classification (GPC) as a framework to define the scope.  The system gives buyers and sellers a common language for grouping products in the same way, everywhere in the world.  In its initial version the tool covers product segments such as beauty/personal care/hygiene products, healthcare equipment, home appliances, lubricants, etc.  The product families covered are being expanded to include automotive, aircraft, food, etc.

The Product Compliance Checklist has first been developed for the European Union as one of the major sources of product regulations.  Enhesa is now adding the additional and deviating requirements as needed for any of the 27 EU Member States.  We are also planning to roll out this year a Checklist for other markets where such requirements are emerging, including China, Japan, Korea, Canada and the United States. Since Enhesa actively monitors environmental regulatory initiatives in over 150 countries and jurisdictions, we are able to develop such checklists for virtually any country of interest, and keep them updated as regulations evolve.

For more information about how Enhesa’s Product Compliance Checklists can help you ensure your company’s products meet global environmental standards, please contact us at info@enhesa.com.

Paul Beatley

Enhesa President

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