Advanced UV-Adhesives Help Industry Stick to Future EU Labeling Laws
Advanced cyanoacrylates will enable manufacturers to meet current and future sustainability and ESG reporting needs, and comply with future labeling requirements.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulation is shaping tomorrow's chemical industry, which is a core part of the value chain of many manufacturing sectors. As government agencies across the globe try to de-risk manufacturing by removing chemical hazards from the supply chain, the chemical industry is having to innovate.
Many commercial photoinitiating (PI) substances used in light curing cyanoacrylate formulations are classified as Sensitizing and/or CMR (Carcinogenic, Mutagenic, Reproductive Toxin). Formulations that contain these substances above a specified threshold are also classified and require hazard statements and pictograms on their Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and labels to provide guidance to the user on the risks associated with using these products. A widely commercialized photoinitiator, TPO, is expected to have a harmonized classification update to Reproductive Category 1B in the summer of 2023. In fact, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) recently announced an intention to identify TPO as a Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC). It is expected that this will occur later this year. While this is an EU regulation, the impact is much wider — customers internationally across Asia and AMAS will also likely restrict or ban the use of SVHC in their products.