Chemical Management | SLB

Chemical Management

Protecting people, products, and the planet through robust chemical management practices

SLB implements a chemical management process to mitigate risks associated with chemicals used in our activities, products, and services, protecting SLB employees, customers, contractors, suppliers, property, and the environment. This process ensures compliance with regulatory and contractual requirements.

As part of our global chemical standard, this management process covers the life cycle of a chemical from development through sourcing, procurement, manufacturing, and sale, to use and safe handling, transportation, and storage, to the end of the life cycle at disposal. The objective of the standard is to eliminate or mitigate the impact of chemical-related incidents, including those affecting biodiversity, by assessing and controlling risks across all phases—whether chemicals are sold as products, used in service delivery, or processed by SLB.

Analytical evaluation for cleaner chemistries

In alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), key focuses in 2023 included waste reduction and promoting less hazardous materials and cleaner chemistry. We employ a risk-based approach to assess our chemistry portfolio within the chemical standard and approval processes. Recently, we enhanced our evaluation with more robust scoring to set improvement targets aimed at reducing or replacing hazardous chemicals. Supporting these efforts, our automated chemical inventory tracking system enables us to identify risks and hotspots, pinpoint areas for improvement, and set targets to reduce or replace hazardous chemicals.

Innovative automation and proactive risk mitigation

Continuing its efforts to strive for next-level product and environmental stewardship, SLB undertook to automate its process for addressing hazardous substances in the product portfolio. SLB actively manages and mitigates the risk hazardous substances may pose to public health and the environment by means of

  • creating transparency in its supply chain
  • disclosing the presence of hazardous substances
  • exploring alternatives to substitute these materials (when possible)
  • monitoring changes in regulations
  • collaborating with suppliers to find safer alternatives and improve supply chain sustainability.

Although company measures and safeguards have been in place for years in all these areas, in 2023, SLB implemented a new, more efficient and digitalized approach to close any potential gaps in the process. In addition to the benefit of potentially lowering the impact of our products, this solution also provides a framework for alignment with global processes and market dynamics of the industry. SLB continues to emphasize the importance of interdepartmental interaction to produce relevant and timely responses to corporate initiatives.

beakers of chemicals
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