This guidance article provides step-by-step instructions on how RBA members and their suppliers may use the chemical screening feature of the RBA's Chemical Platform as an assurance mechanism for assessing conformance with regulatory, authoritative, and customer materials restrictions. 

Note - The chemical screening feature is only available to Chemical Platform users that have the 'Chemical Platform Admin' role assigned to their user account in RBA-Online.

Note - The chemical screening feature may only be used to identify chemical substances of concern in chemical products being consumed at owned/operated facilities belonging to users' accounts (not supplier facilities).

Materials restrictions include regulatory, authoritative, and company-specific prohibitions and/or restrictions on chemical substances of concern in products and/or used as process chemicals in manufacturing. Especially in chemical-intensive manufacturing sectors such as textiles, automotive, and electronics, many brands maintain company-specific restricted substances lists (RSLs) for chemicals in products and manufacturing restricted substances lists (MRSLs) for manufacturing process chemicals. Essentially, materials restrictions are lists of hazardous chemicals used to dictate (i.e., ban and/or restrict to maximum allowable limits) the presence of chemical substances of concern in products and/or in process chemicals used during the manufacturing of products (e.g., cleaning agents, lubricants, photochemicals, etc.). In the Chemical Platform, materials restrictions are simply referred to as chemical lists.

When logged into the Chemical Platform and viewing your company account (requires 'Chemical Platform Admin' role), users will see the five tabs illustrated below. 

• In the ‘Supply Chain’ tab, users can view a list of their facilities and supplier facilities in the ‘Supply Chain Facilities’ section. 
• In the ‘Chemical Inventory’ tab, users can view their company's chemical inventory as a rollup summation of the chemical inventories of their facilities (excludes supplier facilities).
  • The chemical screening feature is limited to chemical products being consumed at facilities, so it won't identify chemical products containing chemical substances of concern that are only in chemical inventories and are not being consumed. 
• In the ‘Chemical Screening’ tab, users can upload their own custom chemical lists that may be set to ‘public’ for visibility and usage by all Chemical Platform users or to ‘private’ for visibility and usage only to users of their account.
• In the ‘Reports’ tab, users can view the count of chemical substances of concern per chemical list for each of their facilities (excludes supplier facilities).

Step 1: Identify Relevant Chemical Lists

1. In the ‘Reports’ tab, identify relevant regulatory, authoritative, and company-specific chemical lists to screen your chemical inventories against.
   1. As illustrated below, the RBA maintains many publicly available materials restrictions (i.e., chemical lists) for chemical screening usage by all Chemical Platform users.
   2. In addition the chemical lists that RBA maintains, the materials restrictions available for screening include any public chemical lists uploaded by Chemical Platform users.

Step 2: Add Chemical Lists

To screen the chemical usage of your facilities against chemical lists that are not already in the Chemical Platform, users may add new customized chemical lists (public or private, negative of positive) by uploading them in the ‘Chemical Screening’ tab. To add a new custom chemical list:

1. Click ‘+ Add Chemical List'

2. Specify the chemical list name and type (negative or positive) and click 'Save'

3. Populate the newly created chemical list by clicking on the chemical list to open the chemical list view

4. Click ‘Import’ and then download the chemical list template by clicking ‘Download Template’

5. Populate the chemical list template with CAS registry numbers for each chemical substance

6. Upload the new chemical list by clicking ‘Select File’, selecting the new chemical list file, and then clicking ‘Upload’. 
   1. All CAS numbers in the new chemical list are automatically verified against PubChem, and some chemical substances may be associated with multiple CAS numbers.
   2. From the ‘Import’ view, users may view the status of uploaded chemical lists. If any errors are encountered with the file upload, the status will read “Completed with Error” and the log file may be downloaded to review any errors (e.g., CAS number already exists).

Step 3: Screen Facilities against Chemical Lists

1. Screen your facilities by selecting the relevant chemicals lists from the ‘Materials Restrictions’ dropdown menu of the ‘Filter’ options, which includes chemical lists maintained by the RBA, public chemical lists added by other Chemical Platform users, and private chemical lists added by Chemical Platform users of your account.
   1. For chemical screening against RSLs, users should only select ‘Chemical in Product (CiP)’ from the ‘Chemical Roles’ dropdown menu of the ‘Filter’ options. 
   2. For chemical screening against MRSLs, users should only select ‘Process Chemical’ from the ‘Chemical Roles’ dropdown menu of the ‘Filter’ options.

2. To share your chemical screening results with stakeholders (e.g., customers, third-party verifiers, etc.) for materials restrictions assurance purposes, export/download the results by clicking ‘Download Excel’ and then share offline.
   1. If additional chemical usage data is needed for identified consumption of chemical products containing chemical substances of concern to satisfy materials restrictions, users may share Facility Risk Scorecards that include additional chemical usage data. Custom Facility Risk Scorecards limited to specific chemical usage data may be most appropriate. For more information, please reference the guidance article ‘How to generate Facility Risk Scorecards?’.