Phone apps drive surge in SVHC requests
Consumer uptake growing of in-store tool
5 March 2015 / Denmark, Cosmetics, Textiles, Priority substances
Following the launch of a consumer smartphone app, major Danish retailers Coop and Bestseller have seen a significant increase in the number of product information requests relating to chemicals (CW 3 April 2014). The app, which was developed by the country’s EPA and the Danish Consumer Council, allows consumers to test whether a product contains any substances of very high concern (SVHCs) by scanning its barcode.
Consumers in Denmark have used the application almost 70,000 times, says the EPA, while more than 1,000 companies have provided information on their products for the app’s database. Since its launch last year, Denmark’s largest retailer, Coop, received, as of February, more than 850 consumer requests asking for information on chemicals in the company’s products, while clothing company Bestseller experienced a similar surge, with 100 requests in the first few months of the app's launch.
Article 33 of REACH requires a supplier of an article which contains an SVHC in a concentration above 0.1%, to respond to such consumer requests within 45 days, free of charge. But until recently, to the disappointment of environmental groups, very few requests were made. For example, prior to the Danish app's launch, Coop received just eight consumer requests, while Bestseller says it was receiving around one a month.
The clothing company believes the app is limited in its use. Responding to the Danish EPA's consultation on the app last autumn, Mogens Stibolt, Bestseller’s global environmental coordinator, said that consumers can benefit more from company restricted substances lists (RSLs), which often provide more detail on a longer list of chemicals. These offer more information to the consumer than the limited information that the app provides, he said. In addition, he said the app may not be as effective as suggested because smaller companies are probably unaware of the concentrations of SVHCs in their products and therefore will be unable to provide the information requested.
Coop’s compliance manager, Malene Teller Blume, says her company was slightly concerned with the increased workload associated with a rise in SVHC requests, particularly because the information can be fairly complex. “Most consumers don’t understand the scope of REACH, or what chemicals are on the candidate list." However, Ms Teller Blume says Coop uses the app to engage with its supply chain and customers on chemicals. A consumer request is sent to the buyer responsible for that particular product; the buyer then sends the request to the supplier, in China for example. She adds that a bill of materials (BOM) list is requested from the supplier during this process, and Coop then carries out a risk assessment. “This [app] will increase attention on SVHCs along the supply chain," she says. "These requests from consumers show suppliers in China and other countries why it is important to small Danish importers.”
A similar app, Vara utan fara, that gives consumers information about chemicals in products and through which consumers can ask suppliers for information on SVHC substances in articles, was launched in Sweden in 2013 by Stockholm University. It has not received funding to promote it and is still relatively unknown, say the developers. Researcher at the university, Linda Molander, who co-developed the app with colleague Ellen Ingre-Khans, is hoping to receive funding to promote and improve some of its features. The app is web-based and can be downloaded as a bookmark on any smartphone home screen, though Ms Molander hopes to upgrade it to a mobile app in the future.
The German arm of the NGO Friends of the Earth also released the ToxFox app in 2013. This focuses on care and cosmetics products and has been downloaded around 450,000 times. So far, 13 million products have been scanned, it says (CW 27 August 2014).
All three apps have been developed to increase consumers' awareness of their right to ask about SVHCs in products, an objective of REACH. Last year, Echa released a video to promote the consumer's right to know about chemicals of concern contained in products they purchase (CW 18 July 2014).