Environmental Committees and Departments

Corporate Environment
The Corporate Environment Department reports directly to the Chief Operating Officer, a member of the Executive Committee. The department is responsible for defining the corporate policy in the field of Safety, Health and Environment, for coordinating and auditing the implementation of this policy and for advising all Agfa organizations.

Product, Safety and Ecology
The Product, Safety and Ecology Department is dealing with enviro-technical and -legal aspects of products that Agfa is manufacturing and distributing worldwide.
This Department is also responsible for:

  • the information as disclosed in Agfa's SDS (Safety Data Sheets), AIS (Article Information Sheets), TREM (Transport Emergency) Cards and on Product Labels of Agfa's commercial chemicals
  • giving expert advice to Research and Development about the safety, health and environmental aspects of chemical substances and preparations, before these are used in new Agfa systems
  • coordinating (eco-)toxicological studies on new chemical products used by Agfa
  • filing technical and legal dossiers with authorities
  • assisting the Agfa sales organisations worldwide with respect to technical and legal environmental questions from the market

Eco-design of Equipment
The Eco-design of Equipment Department holds corporate responsibility for eco-design of equipment, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and recycling of equipment and for the transfer of this know-how to the business groups. It also performs Recycling Assessments during development of new equipment and supports manufacturers to compile Recycling Passes for equipment.

Safety, Health and Environment Management Committee
The corporate Safety, Health and Environment Management Committee (SHE-MC) sets the environmental, health and safety policies, targets and priorities for the business groups and business units. The Committee includes one Member of the Executive Committee, responsible for Environment, the Head of Corporate Environment, the Vice Presidents Operations of Agfa Graphics, Agfa HealthCare and Agfa Global Production Materials and the Vice President Research and Development Materials of Agfa Graphics.

The Product Safety and Ecology Information Committee
The Product Safety and Ecology Information Committee (PSE-IC), chaired by the Head of Corporate Environment, informs, advises, supports and audits the business groups on customer oriented environmental business policies. Members of the PSE-IC include representatives of the business groups, Eco-design of Equipment and the Product Safety and Ecology Department. In order to fulfil this task, the PSE-IC keeps a close eye on legal developments worldwide, on customer problems and competitors' actions.

Environmental departments at the Agfa manufacturing sites
The local Management of Agfa's manufacturing sites is responsible for implementing the Corporate Safety, Health and Environment Policy and Guidelines and for complying with the local legislation that is applicable to the operation of the manufacturing site itself.

Management Systems Coordinators
In all local organizations where an environmental and occupational health and safety management system has been set up, Management assigns management representatives. Those Management System Coordinators are responsible for implementing and maintaining the Management Systems.

EHS assessment within the business groups
In the business group Agfa Graphics, the Marketing Manager and Application Manager take care of commercial issues related to safety, health and environmental aspects of products, systems and services. They have their counterparts in the various sales organizations, and take their decisions within SLTs / PLTs (Segment Line Teams / Product Line Teams). When the business group Agfa HealthCare brings medical products to the market, it applies a systematic approach to assess the requirements regarding safety, health and environment of products and solutions. For new products the environmental requirements are formally defined in an 'environmental assessment'. For product changes, those aspects are part of the 'change assessment', defining also environmental needs. Products can only be put on the market after it has been verified that all defined needs are met. All business groups have representatives in the Product Safety and Ecology Information Committee and are supported by the Product Safety and Ecology Department.

Packaging Committees
The business groups have Consistency Teams that monitor the safety and environmental aspects of packaging of products. The sales organizations can rely on a coordinator to gather data on packaging materials, needed for local packaging waste collection and recycling initiatives.

Local Environmental Committees
Local Environmental Committees or Eco-Clubs have been installed in a number of sales organizations. It is their task to coordinate local environmental initiatives among the various business groups, and to improve communication with headquarters.