Linde North America's Vancouver Plant Receives Responsible Care Certification
MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Linde North America has received certification of its Vancouver, Washington, manufacturing facility under the American Chemistry Council's Responsible Care program.
Linde North America is a member of The Linde Group, a world-leading gases and engineering company. The ACC is an association of producers, manufacturers and suppliers of chemical products.
Earlier this year, Linde's corporate headquarters in Murray Hill, NJ, received certification under the Responsible Care® program. The Vancouver plant is the third of eight production locations on track to be certified before the end of the year.
The Vancouver site incorporates two air separation plants, the first of which started up in 1989. These units separate air cryogenically to produce over 600 tons a day of liquid oxygen, nitrogen and argon. The products from the Vancouver plant are trucked to hospitals, food processors, metals producers, biopharmaceutical manufacturers and semiconductor manufactures in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The plant employs 40 people.
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 ACC 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. Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) is Linde's independent auditor.
"I am very proud of the entire Vancouver team," said Larry Hoose, Northwest area operations manager. "Receiving this certification and being recognized as a Responsible Care site gives us a sense of pride and accomplishment in holding ourselves to a higher standard than just meeting regulatory requirements – a higher standard that demonstrates Linde's strong commitment to its employees, the environment, our community and our customers."
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. Companies must first plan – identify, assess and evaluate potential hazards and risks associated with their products, processes and operations – and establish goals and objectives to address any significant hazards or risks. Next, they must do what they have planned, checking their 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 Vancouver 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 Vancouver plant demonstrates the employees' total involvement in Linde's commitment to sustaining the practices specified in the Responsible Care management system."
The Linde Group is 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 strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards earnings-based and sustainable growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services.
Linde acts responsibly towards its shareholders, business partners, employees, society and the environment – in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. Linde is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development. For more information, see The Linde Group web site at www.linde.com
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