Product Risk Assessment and Management

UOP is fully committed to responsible stewardship of our products. As a cornerstone of UOP's product stewardship program, UOP maintains an active product risk assessment program to continuously identify, characterize, assess and manage the hazards and risks associated with the development, manufacture, transportation, use and disposal of our products.

UOP has formalized the risk assessment of our products through both Company policies and procedures. New products are assessed at each stage of the product development cycle to ensure that hazard and risk information for a product is current and complete prior to the initial entry into the market.

Existing UOP products are grouped into product categories based on market application. Each group is assessed on a three-year frequency.

A review team is assembled for each risk assessment from appropriate organizations within UOP including Sales & Marketing, Provisioning, Supply Chain, the Law Department, and the HS&E Department.

Each team member gathers data about the product group. Information collected includes:
   - Market Data (e.g., list of products, annual sales volumes, customer lists,
     geographical market areas);
   - Description of product use;
   - Raw materials used to manufacture the product;
   - Final product composition;
   - Physical and chemical properties;
   - Product safety literature (e.g., material safety data sheets, product labels);
   - Human or environmental hazard reference data for products and ingredients;
   - Product packaging;
   - Transportation and distribution methods;
   - Previous risk assessments conducted on the products;
   - Product manufacturing process, including any workplace hazards or
     manufacturing emissions;
   - Applicable regulatory and government requirements; and
   - Customer feedback on product safety issues or incidents.

Once the information is assembled, a Risk Review is conducted to assess various aspects of the product group life cycle. Six main issue areas of health, safety and environmental risk management are evaluated:
   - Product Manufacture
   - Product Use
   - Product and Ingredient Toxicity
   - Physical and Chemical Hazards of the Product
   - Product Transportation
   - Environmental Risk

Business units are accountable for instituting and maintaining the appropriate risk management actions, with oversight by the UOP HS&E Department. UOP evaluates all products – new and existing – through this general process.

Communicating Product Risk
The results of UOP’s risk assessment process are incorporated in several ways to communicate and manage risk. Risk assessment results are used to update product Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and Product Hazard Labels. When required, UOP will supplement MSDSs and labels with additional product safety documents such as Precautions & Safe Practices for Handling Zeolite Molecular Sieve Adsorbents in Process Units (PDF 419KB) or Precautions & Safe Practices for Handling Activated Alumina Adsorbents in Process Units (PDF 362KB) .

Results of risk assessments are used to communicate risks of new product manufacture with UOP employees at our manufacturing sites. In addition, UOP shares information about product manufacturing with community advisory panels (CAPS) that operate at many of our manufacturing locations. UOP participates actively in industry consortia for establishing baseline hazard and risk information such as High Production Volume (HPV) initiatives underway in the U.S. and Europe. UOP also provides data to the public through a number of regulatory reporting requirements, such as the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and the Toxic Substances Control Act.

For more information about UOP Health, Safety and Environmental programs or our products, please contact us by completing our Information Request Form.

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