Patty's Industrial Hygiene, Program Management and Specialty Areas of Practice

Safety and health professionals can have a significant role to play in sustainability. The establishment of safety and health goals and the data collection systems for safety and health metrics is an obvious area for collaboration with others in the sustainability function. However, there are a large number of other areas where the science and engineering backgrounds of safety and health professionals make for a significant opportunity to contribute to the overall sustainability effort. Beyond the environmental issues including product life cycle assessments and product stewardship, there are many other areas including community involvement where the safety and health professional can contribute. In fact, there have been several safety and industrial hygiene professionals who have become prominent as the head of sustainability for major corporations such as Dow and Baxter as two examples.

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THOMAS G. GRUMBLES MS CIH *

This chapter is intended to

describe the principles and practice of product stewardship (PS) (also referred to as product safety) to give the reader a working understanding of this growing professional opportunity.

outline the typical qualifications and capabilities of a professional industrial hygienist (IH) and compare them with the competency requirements for the practice of PS.

illustrate how IHs are likely to be very well‐suited to transition into the practice of PS.

Acquiring a working knowledge of PS can benefit the practicing IH in at least two important ways:

Career Enrichment. The IH who knows the issues and solutions in areas of PS becomes more expert in several facets of IH practice and will find opportunities outside the “traditional” areas of IH practice.

Career Opportunities. The current and expected growth of PS will offer alternate practices for many who choose to develop them.

By nature of the readership of Patty's reference volumes, it is assumed that most readers of this chapter will have at least a moderate understanding of the IH profession and its practice. Conversely, though the number of IHs involved in PS work is real and growing, the authors expect that a significant percentage of readers may have only a passing familiarity with PS practices. Consequently, the depth to which basic elements of PS practice are defined and explored is intentionally much more thorough for PS than for IH.

The scope will further be bounded, very simply, by the objective, which is to raise the awareness of PS as a career enrichment opportunity for practicing IHs.

To forward this argument, the following will be discussed:

A suitably broad and generic description of industrial hygiene practice.

Generally recognized qualifications and competencies of professional IH practitioners.

Various operational descriptions and summary definitions of PS.

Historical developments in PS, including selected applicable regulations.

The suitability (including examples) of IH competencies as they relate to the practice of PS.

Conversely, the authors have not attempted to

document the breadth and the depth of IH or PS practice.

offer a comprehensive bibliography of relevant IH or PS regulations.

deliver specific guidance for implementing IH or PS programs.

The PS definitions and examples in this chapter will be largely taken from experiences within the chemical industries, which have played a dominant role in the development of PS, and from US regulatory activity and trade organizations which have been at the forefront of PS evolution.