Cheat Sheet
- Sphera will be the Platinum Sponsor at the Product Stewardship Society conference in Columbus, Ohio
- The conference takes place Sept. 10-12, 2019.
- Sphera’s Carrie Decatur will be on hand to talk about today’s data requirements for product stewards.
- Sphera will be participating in three sessions in all.
While the concept of “stewardship” dates back to biblical times, the idea of “Product Stewardship”—ensuring that products are designed to minimize or eliminate negative health, safety and environmental outcomes throughout the entire life cycle—is a relatively recent development. It’s almost like the medical equivalent of Primum non nocere (“First, do no harm”) but for consumer and industrial goods.
Even more recent is the annual Product Stewardship Society conference, which is now entering its sixth year. It’s designed to bring product stewards together from many different industry sectors to discuss chemical management issues and share best practices. And with the recently announced SiteHawk acquisition and its best-in breed chemical management platform Communicator, Sphera’s depth reaches farther than ever
For the second straight year, Sphera will be the Platinum Sponsor at the event.
In 2018, Francis Trudeau, Sphera’s solution manager for Product Stewardship, led a roundtable discussion titled “Elevating Your Product Stewardship Program With Integrated Risk Management.” The panelists were Chuck McCormick, consultancy ERM’s global partner for information systems; Jennifer Howell, director of regulatory innovations, FONA International; and Fred Gouzoules, Ph.D., a consultant with Whole-in-One LLC. You can read an edited transcript of the discussion exclusively in Spark magazine (p. 64).
Sphera’s Carrie Decatur, who is the company’s senior regulatory analyst, also was on hand to regale attendees with a tale about how she was able to talk at her daughter’s career fair about the joys of being a product steward. This led into a larger discussion about what makes a product steward a product steward—in other words, “How We Got Where We Are.”
The next Product Stewardship Society conference is scheduled for Sept. 10-12, 2019, at the Hilton Columbus (Ohio). And Decatur is one of this year’s speakers. Mathematician Clive Humby once said, “Data is the new oil”—and that’s especially true today. At the conference, Decatur will be discussing today’s data requirements, including the much ballyhooed Poison Centres Notification (PCN) rules, and what it all means for product stewards. And if you missed last year’s event, go ahead and ask her about what being a good product steward means; let’s just say her answer promises to be nothing short of, well, you know, textbook.
Where You Can Find Sphera at the Conference:
- “Distinguishing Hazard From Risk: Application of the Product Exposure Modeling Toolbox”: In this workshop, presenters will return to last year’s theme of “what’s in the toolbox” and advance the project work to a logical conclusion. Sept. 9, 2019, from 8 a.m. to noon (ET). Decatur is one of the three instructors.
- “The Regulators Unquenchable Thirst for Information (Beyond the SDS)”: Regulators have an insatiable need for data. There seems to be a belief that given enough data, we can keep people safe. Once such data is collected, it can be communicated and we all feel safe in the knowledge that it is there. However, do the people consuming the data really understand what is being communicated with them? When does the amount of data being requested become a burden to those trying to provide it? Sept. 12, 2019, from 9:45 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. (ET). Decatur will lead this session.
- Sphera booth: Come meet with Sphera’s experts at the event and learn more about our on-premise and Software as a Service-based (SaaS) Safety Data Sheet and chemical management software. We will also be hosting a 30-minute showcase of our SaaS-based solution. Details to come. Sept. 10-12, 2019.