Full Material Declaration - A case study on the readiness for declaring Full Material Declaration of chemical substances in components, used in finished products

Abstract: The production and use of chemicals has grown exponentially over the past 50 years. Although the knowledge of hazards and risks associated with chemicals towards humans and the environment has increased, we know frightenedly little about how dangerous these might become when part of finished products. Companies now need to be more concerned about which chemicals exist in their products. For the company investigated in the present study, Alfa Laval, the information is needed to be able to meet potential future legislations, and to move towards a circular economy. This study investigates the readiness of suppliers to provide Full Material Declaration (FMD) for components used in one of the company’s gasketed plate heat exchangers (GPHE). The study also uses an explorative literature review that serves as a mean to increase the understanding of the complexity of the topic at stake. The FMD investigation shows that the company investigated in this case study has knowledge about 93,2% of all chemicals in one of their most important products. The case study suggests that the most pressing challenges/barriers the suppliers for this product experience when being asked to provide FMD, are related to intellectual property, trade secrets and difficulties in information flow in the supply chain. To furthermore understand what challenges/barriers suppliers experience when asked to declare chemicals, a questionnaire was sent out to 48 of the company’s suppliers. The questionnaire consisted of three quantifiable questions that could be answered with yes or no, and five qualitative questions, where the respondents were asked to answer the questions in his/her own words. In total, 15 suppliers answered the questionnaire. Some of the challenges/barriers are difficulties in information flow, administration work, sharing information which can be considered intellectual property, the complexity of materials, and if they have a large selection of traded articles. The study confirms the difficulties for companies and their suppliers in mapping chemical substances in products and components. The lack of clear and dispersed methods, systems, and complexity in the information chain, make it difficult to achieve the transparency needed to collect data, and the ability to share data with customers.