From Richard Paton (full text of the email, no editing of content, my emphasis added) on the issue of Stephane Dion's recent press release:
Great to see that someone is noticing what we are doing in Responsible Care. Since 2004, we have even gone further by developing under Responsible Care a global product stewardship strategy. As you probably know under Responsible Care life cycle management is a fundamental principle- the only question is how to do it since chemicals move through product chain.
Dion was speaking to us at that earlier presentation so he was specific to us and we appreciated his speech a lot. His current position is more generalized to industry so other than not recognizing that some industry sectors are already leaders. I cannot fault him at this time. However, he does reflect a big problem that our sector faces constantly. Whenever government proposes policy they just lump industry together ( as they did on climate change) and do not reinforce high performers thus eroding support by government for leadership in responsible care. Other sectors are moving in the same direction- sustainable mining and forest mgt accreditation and government could make a lot of progress by reinforcing these directions but tends to prefer to focus on very specific issues and in many areas undermine leadership by industry.
I think Mr Paton is being diplomatic. I don't see anything in the September press release to suggest that Dion is talking to industry in general. He seems to be talking to chemical producers specifically, as he was in the 2004 speech to the CCPA. But if Mr Paton thinks the comments were more targeted more broadly, so be it. But if that is the case, as Mr Paton says, Dion undermines industry leadership by not reinforcing high performers.
High performers like the CCPA.
How do you reinforce high performers? One way is to give them credit for the progress they've made, instead of listing their programs, and not mentioning whose programs they are.
