Product Stewardship is
the responsible and ethical management of a product throughout its life-cycle. It is an integral component of Sustainable Development and Responsible Care.
Product Stewardship has the following main objectives:
- to ensure best practices and maximise the benefits from product use,
- to provide beneficial, quality products that gain consumer and stakeholder confidence
- to minimise potential risks to human health and the environment.
Our Product Stewardship activities include extensive investment in safety testing of our products, the development of improved packaging design, the development of new technologies with enhanced end-user or environmental safety and the provision of support services to promote responsible product use.
The key principles behind our Product Stewardship Policy are:
- Product Integrity and Testing:
We test products adequately and effectively in accordance with sound scientific procedures and applicable regulatory requirements.
We obtain product authorization for products in the country where the product is to be sold. We take a consistent approach to research and development of products regardless of where in the world this may be. Where a regulatory system is not in place, best international knowledge and accepted practices are used.
- Labels for Commercial Products:
Our labels for commercial products contain appropriate information on registered/recommended uses, first aid and medical advice, precautions for storage, handling and safe use, and instructions for handling and safe disposal of empty packages.
- Products and/or Application Techniques:
We make every reasonable effort to develop products with improved biological, toxicological, ecotoxicological and environmental profiles and support improvement of application technologies.
We ensure that appropriate programmes are implemented in order to train, instruct and, as necessary, update our own staff and customers in all aspects of the responsible management of our products during their entire life-cycle from research to product discontinuation.
Our production facilities are of a suitable standard, in all countries where product is manufactured. Where third parties manufacture on-behalf of Bayer, contractual agreements impose adequate stewardship requirements.
- Packaging, transport, storage and disposal of products:
We organize qualified packaging, transport, storage and disposal of our products in accordance with applicable legal requirements, the respective FAO Guidelines and the Bayer Quality, Health, Safety and Environment Key Requirements.
We advertise and promote only products/product uses that have been registered or authorized in the country in which the product is sold and ensure that all brand communication claims are technically substantiated.
We require that our business partners apply the same level of Product Stewardship to our products as is expected within our own Company.
We only endorse responsible use of our products. Therefore, we do not support, encourage or tolerate any unapproved use of our products.
- External Incident Prevention and Investigation:
We take all practicable measures to prevent any external accident or incident involving our products. Should such accidents or incidents occur, they are reported and fully investigated by the country organization. Measures are implemented to reduce the likelihood of recurrence and to ensure that impact to the environment, stakeholders and the company is minimised.
We support strong and effective intellectual property protection in our innovation activities. We procure adequate legal protection for our innovations. We do not intentionally infringe valid intellectual property rights of third parties.
