Ökopol’s work in the field of chemicals and chemicals legislation, in particular the REACH-regulation, range from the development of practical implementation tools, such as guidance documents or IT-tools, the organisation of strategic dialogue processes, studies on the evaluation of policy success or strategic consulting of enterprises and other actors on their options to act.

Since the discussion on the white book on chemicals policy, Ökopol contributed with several studies and projects to the development of REACH and the ECHA guidance documents at EU level. Furthermore, Ökopol is involved in several dialogue processes, among others on the chemical safety assessment, communication in the supply chain, interfaces with product and waste legislation as well as the monitoring of the impacts of chemicals legislation.

Ökopol develops implementation tools for chemicals legislation on behalf of authorities, industry associations and enterprises. Several consulting services are offered to companies to support them in achieving compliance with REACH and other chemicals legislation.

The content-related organisation of national discussion processes is another focus of Ökopol’s work. Examples of such activities are the national dialogue on nanotechnologies organised by the Ministry of the Environment, the Hamburg competence network REACH and the workshop series Reach in Practice of the Federal Environment Agency.

In addition to the main topic REACH, Ökopol works on the identification of possibilities to integrate substance-related aspects and methods of REACH into other policy areas, such as in the context of the classification and labelling of wastes or the development of criteria under the Ecodesign-Directive or product labels.

Ökopol

  • Assesses substances and develops corporate and sector specific risk management strategies
  • Develops practical tools for the economic actors to assess risks and communicate respective information along the supply chain
  • Represents environmental groups at the expert level in European discussions on chemicals policy
  • Participates in interdisciplinary research projects on the identification of conditions for the dynamic substitution of hazardous substances in the context of sustainability strategies.