Product Stewardship
Product stewardship is the responsible management throughout the full life cycle of a product to ensure safe design, development, handling, use and disposal.
Product stewardship is a cornerstone of our corporate sustainability mission. It stimulates innovation within Momentive to improve the way we meet society’s needs with products and processes that are safer, more environmentally suitable and that perform better. Increasingly, we are incorporating the principles of green chemistry to develop products that reduce the impact of our company and our customers on the environment.
Guiding Products Through Their Lifecycle
Momentive works to proactively manage health, safety and environmental aspects throughout the value chain of our products: from sourcing raw materials, to new product development including toxicology testing and registrations, to manufacturing, packaging and transporting our products with safety data sheets and labels, and ultimately to supporting our customers’ regulatory, sustainability and market-driven needs by understanding end use applications and minimizing end of life impacts.
In addition to complying with international regulatory requirements such as the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) and the European chemicals regulation REACH, Momentive goes beyond compliance through our voluntary commitments to the Responsible Care© Global Charter of the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Responsible Care® program.
Industry Leadership
For more than 20 years, Momentive has contributed to scientific research on the health and environmental aspects over the entire life cycle of our products. We have continued to lead and participate in the development of industry standards and test methodologies and actively participate in scientific forums. We strive to provide accurate information to every part of the supply chain—from our suppliers to our end users—about the safe and proper use and disposal of our products, including hands-on educational efforts with our customers and communities.
In a world of constantly evolving regulations, Momentive proactively monitors developing regulations to ensure we will comply with all new requirements and to understand the risks and opportunities associated with our business strategy and current and future product portfolio. Our government and industry relations team plays a leadership role and participates in silicones industry engagement on public policy and regulations under development that may impact our business as well as sustainability initiatives such as understanding the carbon balance of our products and evaluating silicones within a circular economy.
REACH – The EU Chemicals Regulation
REACH (Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006) is the chemicals regulation of the European Union (EU), valid in the EU member states as well as in the European Economic Area (EEA).
REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals. It entered into force on June 1, 2007 and aims to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals, while enhancing the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. It also promotes alternative methods for the hazard assessment of substances in order to reduce the number of tests performed on animals.
With certain exceptions, companies in the EEA that manufacture or import more than one ton per year of a chemical substance must register that substance with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) by a specified deadline. In order to register substances companies need to work together with other companies who are registering the same substance.
Momentive's REACH Activities
Momentive is dedicated and fully committed to the successful implementation of the goals of the REACH regulation as well as continued, uninterrupted supply to our customers.
Accordingly, we conduct the required testing and assessment of our chemicals, actively participate in REACH registration consortia, cooperate with competent authorities and communicate with suppliers and customers. We identify and manage the risks linked to the substances we manufacture, import and sell in the EEA and communicate appropriate risk management measures to our customers.
More Information on REACH
To obtain Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for our products or extended Safety Data Sheets (eSDS) for registered substances, please visit the SDS Page of our website. For SDSs that are not available here, as well as statements on substances that the EU has identified as Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC), please contact our Customer Service Team.
For more detailed information on our REACH activities, please download our REACH customer letters.
Responsible Care
As a member of the ACC, Momentive is committed to the principles outlined under the ACC's Responsible Care® program. As such, Momentive has processes in place to assess the EHS aspects of our products and to mitigate risks using effective risk management and product stewardship measures commensurate with the risk.
Risk assessment lays the foundation for the product safety and product stewardship program. This involves the collection, critical review and evaluation of diverse types of information. In order to align our product stewardship program efforts with our product risks, we are following the ACC general framework and guidance for product stewardship best practices.
The Momentive process includes:
1. Identifying products and activities that potentially may pose a risk to people or the environment.
2. Gathering of known information and prioritization of products based on the degree of potential concerns.
3. Conducting risk assessment characterization for hazard, exposure and public concern evaluations.
4. Evaluating current risk management processes and, if necessary, identifying and implementing additional risk mitigating actions.
The Momentive product risk prioritization and risk control management is an “evergreen” review process that follows Management of Change principles as new product line extensions occur, as new applications or raw materials are introduced, and/or as new risk information becomes available.
Product Stewardship Summaries
Product summaries for key building block chemicals manufactured by Momentive:
1,1,1,3,3,3-hexamethyldisilazane
Octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4)
Decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5)
Potassium methylsilanetriolate
Product Stewardship Management
Our Product Stewardship Standard defines the key elements of our program, with operating procedures and performance metrics to implement and improve product stewardship at Momentive. Key to achieving this mission are Momentive’s product safety and regulatory experts, with team members aligned with the business segments, trained in different disciplines such as toxicology and transportation of hazardous materials, and located in all regions in which Momentive operates.
To efficiently meet increasing regulatory requirements, we are constantly innovating to improve our product stewardship management system and utilizing standardized processes and automated digital tools to be able to assess regulations and their impact on our portfolio and customers more efficiently, and to be able to be able to service our customers and introduce new products safely in the required timeframe.
*The marks followed by an asterisk (*) are trademarks of Momentive Performance Materials Inc.
