GES Background

The original basis of the REACH Technical Guidance that resulted from the stakeholder processes managed by the Commission in 2005/6 saw the Use Descriptor (UD) system as the primary basis through which supply chain communication would take place and resultant Exposure Scenarios developed and communicated. Unfortunately, the Guidance available in 2007 only saw the exchange of Use Descriptor information as being relevant for supply chain communication.  The consequence of this would have been that thousands of combinations of Use Descriptors would need to have been passed up and down the supply chain, together with the creation of thousands of Exposure Scenarios for the subsequent communication of safe use conditions.  Clearly such a process would not only have been wasteful in terms of effort, but would also have been likely to create enormous confusion amongst users of chemicals.

In order to ensure that a practical approach to the evaluation and communication of chemical risks could be embraced by REACH, ESIG put forward the Generic Exposure Scenario (GES) concepts in 2007.  Rather than only communicating Use Descriptors, the idea is built off existing risk banding concepts in place within some Member States e.g. the EMKG system of Germany and the COSHH Essentials approach of the UK to derive a library of commonly encountered uses for a particular group of substances, which users of such materials could then more readily relate to and apply.  The concepts were further developed in early 2008 and described in a manual for the characterization and development of GESs.

The GES approach was endorsed by Cefic as the preferred approach to Exposure Scenario developments and supply chain communication in late 2007 and was acknowledged and supported as an acceptable basis for the development of CSAs and ESs by ECHA in Q2-08.

Following the acceptance by ECHA of the principles of GESs, ECHA worked with downstream users (through ESVOC, the platform of solvent manufacturers and user groups in Europe) to further characterize and agree the basis for the use mappings for solvents; to develop the related generic CSAs and their associated GESs; and to identify necessary phrases which are understandable and provide the basis for consistent risk communication within the solvent supply chain.  These results are now available and are contained within the ESIG/ESVOC library.

Benefits of the GES:

1. Allow for consistent and efficient supply chain communications to take place for common use of solvents and "solvent like" products
2. Provide a consistent basis by which solvent risks can be evaluated and communicated
3. Represent an efficient and common basis for creating CSAs and CSRs for the registration of solvents, and
4. Introduce a limited number of standard phrases for the development of ES narratives and their communication that can be integrated within the context of safety data sheets systems.