ReachSuite helps US Lubricant Formulators with REACH Pre-registration
Saturday, 17 June 2008ILMA, the N. American-based Independent Lubricants Manufacturers Association, is pleased to announce the formation of a REACH consortium to assist members in their compliance with the European Union’s (EU) new chemicals regulation. After an extensive request-for-proposal process and interviews, the Association has approved the proposal by the Redstone Group who will be using Baytouch’s ReachSuite IT solution to assist ILMA members – Manufacturing, Supplier and Marketing – address cost-effectively various aspects of their REACH activities.
"REACH is a complex regulation, and ILMA has been working hard to help its members understand the implications of this regulation, develop and execute sound compliance strategies, because failure may result in their inability to sell lubricants in the EU markets," said ILMA Executive Director Celeste Powers. "The Association is very pleased to have the Redstone Group and its affiliates available to ILMA members, and I encourage all Members who are affected by REACH to consider joining the consortium," she added.
Pre-registration, the first phase under REACH began on June 1st and continues through to November 30th, 2008. Pre-registration involves the assembly of key information on each chemical substance placed in the EU markets, and ILMA has encouraged Members to pre-register for a number of reasons, including the ability to continue to do business in the EU after January 2009.
The consortium, which will be operated separately from ILMA, will function, utilizing ReachSuite – a web-based system, to collect the information necessary for an ILMA Member to understand its obligations and develop strategies in a timeframe sufficient to complete all pre-registration activities by November 30th, 2008.
ILMA General Counsel Jeff Leiter said, "The system Redstone is putting in place for ILMA Members will be suited to the needs of both Manufacturing and Supplier Members. More importantly, it (ReachSuite) will facilitate communication between Manufacturing and Supplier Members, as well as their customers, as everyone tries to coordinate their REACH pre-registration activities."
A key benefit of the consortium is to get over the hurdle of confidentiality concerns with product formulations and customer names. Accordingly, a key element of the consortium will be mechanisms to protect confidentiality of suppliers and formulators’ formulations and customers. Each participant will load its unique information into REACHsuite, safe in the knowledge that other participants will not have access to their private formulation information. After the supplier information has been collected online, the ReachSuite system output will consist of reports indicating substance exports identified in the applicable tonnage bands thereby preserving supplier proprietary information.
