Product stewardship is a philosophy that influences all our company operations. It implies more than just rescue work where hazards arise for health and the environment. Bayer CropScience has fixed twelve stewardship principles, each of which leads to concrete instructions. The principles accompany the full life-cycle of a crop protection product. They start right at the time of selecting and testing new substances, and continue to apply to product registration, labeling, and formulation.
Training on Safe Product Use Makes Big Difference
One of the principles focuses on the training of staff and customers in all aspects of responsible product use. The company runs training programs in all continents. We have 88 stewards working around the globe, each of whom is committed to the cause of ensuring the safe use of our products.
One example is the 2006 safe seed-treatment campaign in the Ukraine, which reached 4,000 farms via direct contacts, and some 18,000 farms through the media. It significantly increased the percentage of users wearing protective equipment.
In the Ukraine, the campaign comprised educational advertising in the national media, public discussion meetings, and training events for retailers, farmers and farm workers. The participation of the latter two groups was further encouraged by setting up a competition for the best on-farm implementation of product stewardship.
Bayer CropScience is currently concentrating on offering training for crop protection traders, because these people act as knowledge multipliers in their regions. In Brazil the company has started a certification scheme for retailers who are capable of providing the appropriate product stewardship know-how. Distributors who have been awarded a certificate are audited regularly. Projects like this comply with another principle of the product stewardship policy: business partners are expected to apply the same level of responsibility as is demanded within Bayer CropScience as a company.
Incorporating Stakeholders Maximizes Impact
Bayer CropScience does not tolerate any unapproved use of its products. If the company learns of a health hazard or an ecological risk posed by one of its products, additional product stewardship efforts are made. If the risk cannot thus be excluded, marketing of the product may be stopped, and substitutes are sought.
Dialogue and discussion are the best means of promoting the safe use of crop protection products. Moreover, product stewardship needs concerted action. Hence Bayer CropScience tends not to organize projects by itself, but rather brings various stakeholders together. So, in cooperation with others, Bayer CropScience also runs projects on the disposal or recycling of empty containers. The company is also involved in the safe disposal of obsolete pesticide stocks, especially in developing countries.
In the end we want to set the standard in product stewardship towards the safe use of our products and their compatibility to the environment. For us, product stewardship is also connected with economic sustainability.
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