During the 2019 EU Safety and Health at Work Week, Formacare has made great strides in implementing its Voluntary Agreement to implement a pan-European occupational exposure limit (OEL) for workers in the formaldehyde sector. 

 

6 months after signing the Voluntary Agreement, the vast majority of producers have implemented the agreement, with all their workers below the occupational exposure limit of 0.3ppm.  The results show that 54% of workers face no exposure at all and 32% are well below the limit at 0.1 ppm. A first annual Progress Report will be published in mid-2020 detailing the full results.

Lars-Eric Johansson, Chairman of Formacare, commented: “We are really pleased with the progress in implementing the agreement so far. It reflects the strong commitment of our sector to ensuring the best working conditions for its employees. We know there is still more to do and we will continue the hard work until the agreement is fully implemented across the sector. We look forward to publishing the full results in our progress report next year”.

 

The Voluntary Agreement is a unique commitment resulting from collaboration between Formacare, the European Chemical Employers Group (ECEG), as well as trade unions representatives from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and industriALL. It voluntarily implements OEL values two years ahead of the requirements from the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (CMD).

 

Formacare is currently looking at how the voluntary agreement can also be extended to downstream users to ensure the same level of protection is proactively covering the whole value chain.

Please  click here to read the full agreement.