Product Stewardship and Regulatory Compliance

Safe use of our products is a major consideration in developing and delivering new and existing services. Training and safety information sheets are available online for each product. We have an Authorised Product List (APL), with a Pink Note authorisation being required for any operation that seeks to use a product not on its APL.

Our regulatory focus supports new product developments in achieving regulatory approval in the major Pest Control markets and ongoing support for existing professional and consumer rodenticides and insecticides under the European Biocidal Products Regulation.

The Company does not use any substances included on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants list. It fully supports removal from use of hazardous chemicals. Its activities focus on urban pest control (rather than use of agricultural pesticides). Urban pest control is highly targeted, minimising contamination of the ecosystem. It uses only registered products, assessed and approved by regulatory authorities for safe use. Where the hand wash products manufactured by the Company contain surfactants derived from palm oil or palm kernel oil, all the raw materials are sourced from chemical companies such as BASF and SASOL (through local distributors) with declarations stating the raw materials have been sourced from members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

Our customers demand that we produce high-quality soaps that respect the environment, that don’t use harsh chemicals and use sustainable sources. In 2019, we developed a new soap range to address the rising customer needs and worldwide trends with more contemporary and defined scientific claims and marketing assets. In the process of refining our line it gave us the opportunity to improve the existing formulas for an enhanced customer experience. We achieved Ecolabel and Nordic Swan Ecolabel accreditations with our advanced formulas and vegan and halal claims for our Sensitive Foam variant.

In 2019, in line with our preparations for Brexit we transferred our EU registrations to Dublin from the UK. This is to ensure that we can continue to supply and use our own manufactured products in Europe. We have also transferred the registrations under evaluation by the UK authorities to other alternative competent authorities to ensure that the evaluations will continue.

The Company takes seriously its animal welfare responsibilities and has an excellent reputation for conducting business within national legislative guidelines. However, the European Biocidal Products Directive, for example, compels the company to conduct a small number of tests to confirm product performance. The Company’s animal welfare policy is, in the first instance, either to use its existing set of experimental data, to seek data from tests previously conducted by other companies, or to seek data waivers to avoid further testing.

Partnering

We continue to partner with the BRC Global Standards, involving collaboration and development of initiatives including the creation and adoption of new products, services, industry best practice and Standards. It aims to help customers mitigate risks in the food industry, including product recalls.

A survey of US food companies found that 58% had suffered some form of product recall, of which biological contamination (including pest infestation) and foreign matter (including body parts of pests) are two of the main causes.

For five years Rentokil Initial has also been a major sponsor of the Global Food Safety Initiative where food industry companies can meet to share best practice on food safety, including pest control.

We continue to support trade associations including the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), British Pest Control Association (BPCA), The Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use (CRRU), British Association of Chemical Specialties (BACS) and EU Chemicals Trade Association (CEFIC). Rentokil has played a leading role in the set-up of the UK product stewardship programmes for anticoagulant rodenticides (led by CRRU), to change pest control behaviour for rodent control in the sectors where widespread use of rodenticide occurred by users who were not professional pest controllers.