European Environmental, Health, & Safety Network

“EU Roadmap on Carcinogens” [https://roadmaponcarcinogens.eu/(link is external)] is a voluntary action scheme to address cancer, which is the leading cause of work-related deaths in the EU, and leads to 100.000 deaths per year in Europe.

The action scheme began on 25 May 2016 when six European organisations signed “A Voluntary Action Scheme on Raising Awareness and Exchanging Good Practices to Deal with Risks arising from Occupational Exposure to Carcinogens.” The original six organizations were: EU-OSHA(link is external); EU Commission(link is external); EU Trade Union Confederation(link is external); BusinessEurope(link is external); Austrian Federal Ministry of Labour(link is external); Netherlands Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment(link is external).

10 factsheets were published on April 20, 2018 by the Roadmap on Carcinogens [https://roadmaponcarcinogens.eu/facts/fact-overview/(link is external)] to describe the: substance, risks, symptoms, and actions to reduce exposures for:

• Asbestos
• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
• Vinyl chloride
• Chromium VI
• Hardwood dust
• Welding fumes
• Silica dust
• Diesel engine exhaust
• Benzene

The next ten factsheets are expected to cover: acrylamide, ethylene oxide, trichloroethylene, cytostatic, cadmium, lead, nickel, beryllium, hydrazine, and information on the “STOP” hierarchy of controls measures.

The EI Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) began the “No Time to Lose” campaign in 2014 to raise awareness of workplace exposures and help companies tackle occupational cancer. The campaign involved the support of 220 organisations and collaboration of partners worldwide and has had more than 100 high-profile businesses sign the campaign pledge to manage workplace exposures to carcinogens. Carcinogen risks covered by the campaign include: diesel motor emissions, asbestos, solar radiation and crystalline silica.  A report that describes the phased implementation of the campaign and the progress through May 2018 is available at: https://osha.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publications/documents/Case_study_United_Kingdom.pdf(link is external)

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No one expected Great Britain to vote on 23 June to leave the European Union, and it will take years to fully resolve Britain’s departure. However, companies now must begin to plan for the effects on their operations, and the impact on their corporate environmental, health, and safety requirements.

Economies worldwide are still reeling from the uncertainty resulting from Britain’s choice. The global stock markets lost $3 trillion of value in just two days, and the British pound dropped to a 31-year low against the dollar, and then sank to a new low a week later. As those immediate impacts begin to resolve themselves, we are left with little more than speculation about the process to be taken, and the short- and long-term effects that Brexit will have on Britain, the EU, and the world.

Britain is now experiencing a political vacuum, as the British Conservative and Labour Parties have overturned their leaders, and a primary proponent of the Brexit movement decided to exit from politics. As Parliament refuses to hold a second resolution to reconsider the Brexit vote, no leadership is available to negotiate terms for UK’s departure from the EU. Meanwhile, as Scotland is considering a referendum to exit the UK to maintain its membership in the EU, Northern Ireland is considering similar action to avoid re-establishing border controls with Ireland and loss of access to EU markets. Speculation is increasing that Brexit may ultimately result in a UK-break-up.

European leaders are saying they see no possibility of reversing the Brexit decision, and they intend to require the UK to comply with most EU rules if they are to continue having direct access to EU markets. The UK could obtain such market access by remaining in the European Economic Area (EEA), but as a non-EU member of the EEA (e.g., Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway). However, the UK would have to enact environmental legislation similar to everything currently in place in the EU, along with similar laws on social policy, consumer protection, companies, and statistics. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said in a speech to German legislators: “Free access to the domestic market is granted to those who accept the four basic European freedoms – of people, of goods, of services, of capital.” The EU’s free movement of labor and immigrants was a major concern driving the Brexit vote, and can be expected to be seen as a significant obstacle by Britain.

Brexit might remove English as the language of the EU and European Parliament. Britain is the only EU Member State that selected English as its official language, since the two other predominantly English-speaking countries chose their own national languages: Ireland chose Gaelic; and Malta choose Maltese. Removing English as one of the 24 official languages of the EU, and a primary working language of the EU Parliament (along with French and German) would impact many UK- and European-based companies, along with the UK government’s ability to remain in compliance with EU regulations and directives. According to Danuta Hübner, chair of the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, “If we don’t have the UK, we don’t have English.”

All EU-based treaties, regulations, and directives will cease to apply within the UK at the end of the two-year transition period, as provided under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which describes the exit of Member States from the EU. The UK government, however, must retain all current EU-sourced laws and controls through the end of that transition period, which begins with Britain’s official statement of exit from the EU that is expected at the end of 2016.

Brexit is expected to have little impact on corporate health and safety requirements, since much of the EU’s Health and Safety Framework Directive 1989 originated from the UK Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA) and its implementing regulations. Similarly, the UK Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 established the EU fundamental for workplace risk management, setting an expectation that people will return home healthy and free from injury, and remains a core principal of UK law. Lastly, there are no immediate pressures from the UK government, UK’s Health and Safety Executive, or employers to revise health and safety requirements since the existing rules are well respected globally, will facilitate trade by matching with the EU regulatory framework, and are long-standing requirements used by employers and employees to establish safe working conditions.

Current environmental laws and requirements in the UK are the complex result of EU directives and EU laws, along with national obligations based in various international treaties and conventions. Changes in environmental requirements can be expected, both because, since the UK joined the EU in the 1970s, it has considered the EU’s environmental mandates to be excessively burdensome, and because of the Brexit movement’s promise to adapt environmental laws to UK-specific circumstances. For example, Britain has been particularly critical of EU air quality requirements that reduced sulphur dioxide emissions by 80% since the 1980s and vehicle particulate emissions 65% by 2005.

The UK’s legislative process is more directly impacted by political cycles than the EU’s development of laws, which raises uncertainty about the long-term evolution of the environmental laws and requirements, particularly on issues such as air quality limits, pollution prevention, and waste management policies. Ultimately, the rate of change in the UK’s environmental requirements will be driven by the underlying source of the UK law or regulation, as follows:

• The UK will need to re-establish national laws on topics covered by EU regulations directly implemented in each Member State (e.g., REACH, CLP, Biocides). For such EU regulations, current UK national legislation only addresses the enforcement of the requirements and penalties for non-compliance. So the UK will have to enact new national legislation during the two-year transitional period to replace those expiring EU laws, while avoiding missing or overlooking any essential regulatory provisions. REACH and Biocides regulations will require UK-based companies importing products into the EU to identify representatives based in the EU and who can submit required documentation.
• UK national legislation that implements EU directives will require detailed review and editing to remove the many references to EU mandates, while producing comprehensive and cohesive requirements and maintaining internal controls. Many of these EU directives (e.g., Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive; IPPC Directive) directly affect UK-based companies. The EU’s latest directive on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) must be implemented via UK law by 16 May 2017, which is before Brexit is complete, to avoid enforcement penalties. Although the UK is expected to modify its laws after its EU exit, implementing changes may be delayed by the large volume of EU-based legal requirements that will be entirely eliminated at the end of the transition period.
• International standards, conventions, and treaties have produced environmental requirements that cannot be universally re-written or simply set aside by the UK. For example, the UK is a separate signatory from the EU for a number of international treaties and agreements (e.g., Basel Convention on transboundary waste shipment; Kyoto Protocol on GHG emission reductions; Aarhus Convention on information access). A lengthy process can be expected for the UK to introduce changes to such international agreements.
• EU case law, as decided in the European courts, is often used by the UK and other EU Member States to interpret the requirements of many EU-derived environmental laws. However, the Brexit vote was in part driven by Britain’s reluctance to accept such decisions from European courts, whose justices are neither appointed nor elected by the individual Member States. The UK will be breaking new ground as it establishes protocols for addressing EU case law that develops after the transition period is over, versus applying EU case law developed before Brexit.

UK companies manufacturing products and services imported into other countries also will continue to be subject to international environmental product and supply chain standards (e.g., RoHS and GHS), regardless of what changes are made to the UK laws and regulations. For example, the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized Standard (GHS) affects supply chains, safety data sheets (SDSs), and the importation of chemicals and mixtures by all major industrialized nations. The GHS is implemented through the EU’s Classification, Labelling, and Packaging (CLP) regulation, but the hazard classification requirements and information structures are similar throughout the world.

REACH is a complex EU regulation that imposes burdensome requirements for both EU-based manufacturers and importers into the EU, who must comply with requirements for registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction (REACH) on the chemicals in their products. Brexit will remove the UK’s ability to influence the EU regulation of chemicals, and further complicate REACH conformance by UK-based manufacturers and any importers that had relied on UK-based organizations.

• Registration: So far, UK-based companies have filed more than 5,000 REACH registrations, which is more than any other country other than Germany. After Brexit, Britain’s manufacturers will need to select an “only representative” (OR) located within the EU to maintain those registrations. Also, 31 May 2018 is the next REACH registration deadline for substances between 1 to 100 tonnes, and will likely apply to UK-based companies, since it occurs before Brexit can be completed. Companies that participated in joint REACH chemical registrations that were previously submitted by UK-based companies or UK-based ORs will also need to reconsider the terms of their chemical registration data ownership and cost sharing agreements.
• Evaluation: Chemical evaluations that are being prepared by the UK as the competent authority will either need to be completed by the end of the transition period or handed off to another EU Member State. Companies with expectations for REACH evaluation results on chemicals essential to their processes could receive a very different outcome from another Member State’s competent authority, particularly if that is where a major competitor is located. After Brexit, the UK will no longer be a part of the Member States Committee, which is responsible for selecting chemicals for REACH evaluation in the Community Rolling Action Plan (CoRAP).
• Authorisation: The UK could elect to reintroduce chemicals into their market that are being phased out as REACH substances of very high concern (SVHC) or chemicals requiring authorization in the EU. Any UK-manufactured items that are finished products imported to the EU will be able to avoid REACH “authorization” requirements if the items don’t release the chemical during their entire life cycle. However, allowing continued manufacture and use of REACH authorization chemicals with documented human or environmental risks may have limited economic value since most EU-based companies already attempt to exclude those chemicals from their entire supply chain. After Brexit, the UK will no longer be a part of the Member States Committee, which resolves the opinions on chemicals being considered as SVHCs, and provides opinions on including chemicals in REACH authorisation.
• Restriction: The UK could lift restrictions for UK-based activities, as long as finished products marketed to the EU do not contain any of the 61 restricted substances in the specified concentrations in mixtures or in specific types of articles listed in REACH Annex XVII. Also, after Brexit, the UK will no longer be able to propose a chemical for restriction under REACH, an approach that has been used by some Member States to eliminate chemicals from the EU supply chain that were essential for industrial competitors’ products.

In conclusion, Britain’s vote to leave the EU has set in motion a long and complex process, the results of which may include the end the use of English in the EU and the breakup of the United Kingdom. Current UK health and safety requirements are closely aligned with pre-EU structures, and are unlikely to change substantially, if at all. However, national legislation will be needed to replace EU environmental laws, rules, and regulations that will support internal policy goals and provide continued access to the EU markets – all by the end of the two-year transition period.

While the UK may intend to segregate and roll-back some specific environmental requirements, that effort will be complicated by national obligations based in international treaties and conventions. There is a growing realization within the UK that, after Brexit, not only will the country be unable to influence the development of future EU EHS laws and mandates, but it ultimately will be forced to comply with many of those same requirements to retain access to its largest market.

©2016 JGE Global, LLC; Silver Spring, Maryland, USA; (+01) 240-423-0025; cordjones@jgeglobal.net(link sends e-mail)