GHS in North America and Europe: Key Compliance Strategies and Important Points

Since UN GHS was first implemented in 2003 numerous countries and regions have adopted the system and help shape the current requirements. For example, United States published the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) in 2012. HCS 2012 functions as GHS in the US and will become effective from Jun 1st 2015. Canada also released its own GHS regulation, Hazardous Products Regulations (HPR) on Feb 11th 2015, which will become effective from Jun 1st 2015, too. Interestingly, the implementation of EU CLP on mixtures will also start from the very same day, Jun 1st 2015. Although the GHS regulations in different countries are all based on UN GHS, they are adapted to fit the individual requirements of the domestic industry in each region. For instance, there are 28 hazard classifications in UN GHS and EU CLP while US HCS only adopts 26. These kinds of differences cause significant issues during international trade making understanding of inter-framework compliance a necessity for companies trading globally. 

Topic 1: Key Points of North America GHS and Compliance Strategy

Speaker: Bella Zheng

• Implementation of US GHS

• Implementation of Canada GHS

• Comparison between US and Canada GHS

• Analysis of Compliance Strategy to North America GHS

Topic 2: Key Points of EU CLP and Compliance Strategy

Speaker: Eric Sun

• Introduction of EU CLP on mixtures

• Comparison between EU CLP and China GHS

• Analysis of Compliance Strategy to EU CLP