Industry safety standards and regulations are constantly under review and analysis in an effort to continually improve upon them. The chemical sector is no exception, as governments worldwide are working to put the whole area of accident prevention in hazardous industries under greater regulatory control, the chemical sector is specifically increasing its emphasis on process safety. In a recent article from ICIS.com author Sean Milmo takes a look at some of the issues revolving around this movement.

Entitled "Chemical firms grapple with new approach to process safety data," Mr. Milmo's article first addresses the considerable pressure mounting towards the chemical industry to increase the scale of safety data reporting as a recent series of major accidents within the industry have resulted in a significant number of injuries and fatalities. These incidents have prompted both regulatory authorities and the general public to expect the chemical industry to step up preventative measures for these types of catastrophes.

So what is being done? In both Europe and North America regulatory bodies are taking steps to improve the safety reporting landscape and implement a process safety approach. As Mr. Milmo notes, "The European Commission is reviewing the 13-year-old Seveso II directive on the control of major accident hazards with the objective of making more effective obligatory safety management systems in plants, including those covering process safety. In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been urged, particularly by the country's Chemical Safety Board (CSB) that investigates chemical accidents, to enforce existing legislation on process safety more effectively." Although both sides of the Atlantic are proactively seeking a common platform for chemical sector safety standards, there is still dispute from each party as to what process safety data should be monitored. The problematic issue has been the huge variety of data that can be categorized as being indicators. There are two types of indicators, lagging and lead, lagging indicators provide information on incidents after they have happened and lead indicators help to measure the effectiveness of procedures, operating disciplines and protections that work to prevent incidents, there are also near misses which are not serious but could lead to severe incidents. The choice between these indicators is causing much confusion among experts, as what some would classify as a lead indicator others would categorize as lagging.

Although there have been some disputes along the way, much progress has been made by both US and European organizations to establish a uniform model for the application of indicators. As Mr. Milmo explains, "A consensus has now emerged that the choice of lead indicators should be left to individual companies or even sites within companies because different lead indicators are required for different products and processes." Also, in late 2007, the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) in the US consulted with a variety of chemical and petroleum associations, regulatory bodies, trade unions and academics to create a list of process safety metrics which has gained support from North and South America as well as a few European countries. With the main priority to gain a consensus towards the metrics, the CCPS is leaving room for adjustments and continued improvements to their list. Although not perfect yet, the effort towards creating a global reporting culture is growing, which ultimately will create safer and more regulated conditions for all those working within the chemical sector across the globe.