Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and extended Safety Data Sheets (eSDS)

The safety data sheet is an important communication tool to provide information on the hazards and risks of substances and mixtures. The GHS (Globally Harmonized System) has put together a global standard for the structure of the safety data sheet. This means that it is now possible to compile and disseminate safety data sheets that have the same structure all over the world. The content is still defined by regional or national legislation. Fortunately, the regional or national legislators today use the possibility of applying the GHS (Globally Harrmonized System) for the classification and labelling either in full or in part. This represents an important step forward for the safe trade in chemical products worldwide in compliance with the laws and regulations.

In Europe, the safety data sheet that usually describes the potential hazards when handling chemical substances is extended to include a description and control of risks (eSDS).

Compilation of Safety Data Sheets

Basic version

As a general rule, we first compile a safety data sheet according to Article 31 of the REACH Regulation in German or English. It is compiled on the basis of the legal requirements, possibly based on existing lists and many other information sources. To draw up the sheet, we need all of the information you have or can provide. This includes information about your product, such as trade name, colour, odour, and, in the case of mixtures, the composition, uses and applications and much more. We also require the latest version of existing supplier material safety data sheets and, if available, internal data from studies or research or literature searches.

If you have no information available or should you have no access to the data, we will be happy to find the missing data for you. If there are data gaps, we can easily entrust our partner laboratories with the task of filling these gaps or obtaining certainty about a particular classification. We will take care of the overall study management and study monitoring.

If there are problems in obtaining the latest supplier safety data sheets, or in the event of ambiguity on the content of the supplier safety data sheets, we will be happy to include the regular sourcing and clarification of these ambiguities in your order (KFT Control & Care).

If you have questions or require detailed explanations of classifications or special content during the compilation of the SDS, we are happy to advise you. The necessary consulting time can be booked for this purpose.

The result is a compliant CLP safety data sheet in German or English. This safety data sheet is provided to you on our platform KFT-ChemDoc24. To find out more about the features of this platform, see menu item “KFT ChemDoc24”. To make sure that you always send legally compliant SDS, you can entrust us with regular updates.

With the legally compliant compilation and updates you avoid the penalties provided for in the new chemical penalties regulation for infringements in relation to the compilation and updating of the SDS.

Many countries worldwide have now adopted the Globally Harmonised System (GHS) in their hazardous substances legislation. However, the classification and labelling criteria in the individual countries often differ according to the “building block principle”. What’s more, the individual regulations are also based on different revision levels of the UN-GHS. The updating to the latest version (revision) takes place in the countries at different times. This means that there is no one GHS safety data sheet.
We monitor the corresponding implementation of the GHS worldwide and refer to the national legal requirements when preparing the safety data sheets.

In countries that have introduced GHS, we prepare the safety data sheets according to the country-specific implementation. In doing so, we take into account national particularities with regard to language and other national requirements, such as country-specific limit values or country-specific classification lists.

Moreover, many countries are yet to introduce the GHS. Some of these countries have implemented their own legal basis for the creation of safety data sheets. In these cases we prepare the safety data sheets for these countries on the basis of this current legislation.

In other countries there is no or only rudimentary legislation governing the preparation of safety data sheets. Nevertheless, customers in these countries often demand SDSs. In this case, we prepare the safety data sheets according to your specifications or those of your customers. Often, a safety data sheet according to UN-GHS specifications is prepared in the respective national language to ensure that the user on site can also understand the important information for safe handling of the product.

We can currently offer standardised safety data sheets in over 50 languages worldwide.

According to Article 14 of REACH Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, a chemical safety report (CSR) must be prepared in the EU for every substance registered in excess of 10 tonnes. If it is a hazardous substance, the relevant exposure scenarios from these CSRs must then be attached to the safety data sheet. For the preparation of the extended safety data sheet (eSDS), we require a corresponding template from your supplier or the registrant of the substance.

We check the template and make sure that your eSDS contains the latest information. If there are any uncertainties, we will liaise with the template creator on your behalf. We also guide you through the selection of the required exposure scenarios. This depends on the uses made by you and your customers. If uses are not yet covered, we will advise you on the options available to ensure legally compliant use of the substance.

Due to the increased controls by the authorities in relation to uses, a correct appendix to the safety data sheet is becoming increasingly important. Do not hesitate to ask us for additional advice on this complex subject.

Maintenance of your safety data sheets

Pursuant to Article 31 (9) of REACH, suppliers must immediately update their safety data sheets as soon as they obtain new information that can have impacts on the risk mitigation measures, or as soon as new information on hazards becomes available. This is always the case when there are changes to classification, labelling and workplace exposure limits. This is also the case, however, when changes are made to exposure scenarios and the related risk mitigation measures. New or changed information about restrictions or approvals also trigger SDS updates. For reasons of product liability, it is necessary to indicate changes to product properties to avoid claims for damages. According to the new chemical sanctions regulation, which is due to enter into force without a transition period in the autumn, infringements of these statutory provisions are punishable by fines. To comply with this statutory requirement, KFT offers various solutions. For automatic updates, you can select one of the 3 variants described here. The maintenance service also comprises the possibility of requesting the most recent safety data sheets from suppliers (KFT Control & Care) so that your SDS are not updated on the basis of obsolete information

It is up to the employer to ensure that employees who handle hazardous materials have access to safety data sheets and that operating instructions are available for all hazardous substances involved. You can ensure access to safety data sheets in the workplace thanks to KFT ChemDoc24. Through this access, you can also ensure the availability of the current operating instructions in the workplace. To do this, we draw up substance-specific operating instructions on the basis of the data in the safety data sheet or the extended safety data sheet (eSDS). These operating instructions are available in the language understood by your employees.

If you wish, we will update your operating instructions together with your other documents.