The release of the ZDHC CMS Technical Industry Guide completes the ZDHC Chemical Management System (CMS). Its first part was released last year in May, the CMS Framework, outlining the minimum requirements of a CMS. With this second document, the CMS Technical Industry Guide supports the practical part of implementing the ZDHC CMS within the supply chain.
A sound sustainable chemical management system reduces impacts on the community, broader environment and protects worker safety. In creating the CMS Technical Industry Guide, ZDHC aims to harmonize the brands’ expectations towards suppliers. Throughout the development, ZDHC contributors were involved in extensive reviews to address their needs and incorporate feedback. The ZDHC CMS, Technical Industry Guide, provides the basis for Suppliers to tailor and implement their sustainable chemical management plans to meet the harmonized expectations, whether tanneries, dye-houses, mills, printers or footwear assembly units or another kind of facility.
Prasad Pant, South Asia Director, ZDHC, said, “The ZDHC CMS Technical Industry Guide is our effort to provide simplistic, structured and practical guidelines to Manufacturing Facilities to develop their system to manage chemicals to fit their operations and needs, aligned with the ZDHC CMS Framework. Brands, as well as Auditors, should use the document to harmonize the expectations of a ZDHC CMS and adopt it as the standardized industry approach to facilitate its implementation by Suppliers.”
Jimmy Summers, VP Environment, Health, Safety & Sustainability, CSO, Elevate Textiles, said, “The ZDHC CMS Technical Industry Guide will now provide the basis on which we will be able to ensure that our chemical management system meets and exceeds industry standards, and from this basis, we will continue to drive improvements. I see this document as essential guidance for all textile Manufacturing Facilities around the world.”
