Sound Management of Chemical Information via Internet

Abstract

The chemical industry worldwide has released millions of chemical products to date. As EU plants tend to "go east", governments are going to support the establishment of EU law pursuant to national chemical control regulations. This specific scenario can also be applied to many other regions in the world. The large number of chemical products, the numerous international chemical control regulations (Feierl 1998) and the need for international cooperation make the sound management of chemical information a key success factor. This is true for both industry and controlling authorities. This contribution describes the requirements for sound management of chemicals and the recent developments in the IGS (Information and communication system on hazardous substances). IGS is a well established, Internet based and multilingual substance information system relying on close cooperation between a powerful network of data providers.