Within the field of Environmental Health & Safety (EHS), compliance is a frequent topic, but it’s easy to forget that compliance isn’t the finish line, it’s the foundation of safety. Safety Data Sheets (SDS) are a core piece of that compliance foundation, but fragmented SDS management, where labs are sourcing and managing their own documents, makes consistency and oversight incredibly difficult.
The Solution: Centralized SDS management.
It makes compliance easier and strengthens EHS culture.
It makes compliance easier and strengthens EHS culture.
Even if SDSs are readily available, decentralized management across an institution can lead to gaps. Labs have different methods of documentation, which are frequently offline. Rapid turnover of chemical inventory means that manually curated SDSs can quickly become out of date. For EHS teams who need to ensure that labs are in SDS compliance, keeping track of each lab’s SDS process and whether they’re up to date can be time-consuming, and promoting standardization can be an uphill battle. Inconsistent SDS practices can create information gaps that ripple into core EHS functions such as training, risk assessments, and chemical hygiene planning.
Closing the SDS information gap is key to solidifying compliance and democratizing safety. A centralized SDS library gives every lab and safety professional access to the same up-to-date, vetted SDS information. When the library is integrated with a chemical inventory management system, SDSs are always available to a lab during an emergency regardless of the day-to-day shuffle of chemicals in and out of the lab. When all labs work from a single source of SDS information, it reduces duplicative work and errors, allowing researchers to focus on research rather than administrative upkeep.
When EHS departments and the labs they oversee are aligned on SDS management, safety becomes a shared responsibility. EHS professionals can focus on training and emergency response, instead of chasing SDS updates. This shift from policing to partnering creates a culture where compliance becomes the norm and researchers are engaged in safety awareness and risk prevention rather than looking over their shoulders.
Centralized SDS management isn’t just an administrative fix; it’s an EHS strategy for building consistency, communication, and teamwork so that safety becomes something that is practiced instead of just documented. Contact us to learn more about the Risk and Safety Solutions centralized SDS Library.
Author
Matt Beckman
Lead Communication Analyst
Risk and Safety Solutions