Australia’s DAWE announces “Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard Roadmap” 
On March 23, 2022, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE) released the IChEMS (Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard) Roadmap. This roadmap was developed in collaboration with the federal, provincial, and territorial governments as part of a broader reform of chemicals and waste management. The goal is to fully implement the standard nationwide in the second half of 2022.
On the same day, DAWE published the draft “IChEMS (Registration) Principles” for managing the environmental impact of chemicals based on seven reference schedules under the Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Act 2021, and began soliciting comments. Comments will be solicited until 5pm local time on May 24, 2022. In addition, the initial reference schedule will be decided in late 2022 after the solicitation of comments has been completed.
IChEMS provides a national approach to how chemicals are used, stored, handled, and disposed of, and the published roadmap provides guidance on the following points:
- How should the new IChEMS framework be implemented in Australia?
- Government measures to implement consistent standards nationwide
- Overview of timelines when implementing IChEMS
The relevant documents can be viewed from the following URLs.
- DAWE solicitation of comments page “Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Principles”
https://haveyoursay.awe.gov.au/icemr-principles - DAWE special website “Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard”
https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/protection/chemicals-management/national-standard#our-scheduling-strategy
