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Linde Plant Earns Responsible Care Certification
12/10/2008 - ABSTRACT: Linde North America receives certification under the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care program for its Nashville, Tenn., air separation plant.
Linde North America has received certification under the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care® program for its Nashville, Tenn., air separation plant.
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Responsible Care is a globally recognized management system aimed at helping companies improve performance in areas such as safety, health, environment and security.
Certification is mandatory for all American Chemistry Council member companies, which must undergo headquarter and facility audits by an independent, accredited auditor to verify that they have a structure and system in place that manages and measures performance.
The Responsible Care management system offers an integrated, structured approach for driving continual improvement in seven key areas:
· Community awareness and emergency response
· Security
· Distribution
· Employee health and safety
· Pollution prevention
· Process safety
· Product stewardship.
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“Responsible Care is an important requirement for Linde’s continued membership in the American Chemistry Council,” said Robert Kushner, Nashville plant manager. “This certification indicates our commitment to being a responsible neighbor to all the people and organizations in our communities.”
The Responsible Care management system offers an integrated, structured approach for driving continual improvement in seven key areas: community awareness and emergency response; security; distribution; employee health and safety; pollution prevention; process safety; and product stewardship.
Implementing the Responsible Care system is a multi-step process, beginning with planning, including the identification, assessment and evaluation of potential hazards and risks associated with their products, processes and operations. Once the company has established goals and objectives to address any significant hazards or risks, it must then do what it has planned, checking its progress along the way to measure performance and take necessary corrective actions. Communicating with employees and other stakeholders, including neighbors and customers, along the way also is essential.
“All the people at our Nashville plant worked very hard for this certification, which falls right in line with our goals as a high performance organization and our vision to be the leading gases and engineering company,” said Charlie Koehler, Vice President of Safety, Health, Environment and Quality for Linde North America. “Certification of the Nashville plant demonstrates the employees’ total involvement in Linde’s commitment to sustaining the practices specified in the Responsible Care management system.”
Linde’s Nashville plant is the fifth of eight additional locations on track to be certified before the end of the year. Other facilities that have been certified are located in Cartersville, Ga.; South Bend, Ind.; Kittery, Maine; and Vancouver, Wash. Linde’s corporate headquarters in Murray Hill, N.J., also received certification earlier this year.
The American Chemistry Council is an association of producers, manufacturers and suppliers of chemical products.
Linde North America is a member of The Linde Group, a world-leading gases and engineering company with more than 50,000 employees working in around 100 countries worldwide. In the 2007 financial year it achieved sales of EUR 12.3 billion (USD 18.7 billion). The Linde Group’s strategy is geared toward earnings-based and sustainable growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.
Linde’s Nashville plant, which has been in operation since 1989, separates air cryogenically to produce over 280 tons a day of liquid oxygen, nitrogen and argon. These products are trucked to hospitals, food processors and metal smelters, as well as chemicals, automobile and tire manufacturers in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee. The plant employs 17 people.
Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance is Linde’s independent auditor.
