With this tool, we give you the possibility to check the chemicals used in your supply chain and see if they are hazardous and/or restricted to use. The search function will assess each chemical and check it against a number of textile sector RSL lists as well as national and international regulatory lists.

So, what are these “lists” you built your database on?

The lists are recognized compilations of toxic chemicals put together by well known textile companies, trade bodies and legislators in the US and EU. In total we have more than 6500 chemicals in the database. Take a closer look here:

As a supplement to the 6500+ known hazardous substances, we have also included another set of chemicals with more than 80,000 substances. These 80,000+ substances provide support for the search so you can make sure you have entered the correct CAS number. These substances have unknown properties and should hence not automatically be considered as safe. These substances are always displayed in GREY in your search.

However, several functional groups such as “lead compounds” consist of hundreds of substances each. Since it would not provide added value to include all of those, only a selection known to be present in textile have been included even if the group as such consists of almost 800 substances.

How to search

In order to perform a search, all you need is a CAS number, a chemical name, or a functional substance group name such as “flame retardant”, “aromatic compounds” or “heavy metals”. The auto-complete function in the search box will propose relevant results depending on what you type in.

The most accurate way of searching is by entering a CAS number, which is a unique identification number for all chemicals. The CAS number is the preferred option since chemical names are complex, ambiguous, numerous and all too often extremely easy to misspell. If you search for a common phrase such as “formaldehyde” or “benzene” it will return quite a few results (1000+) since those names are commonly part of substance names. All substances known to be hazardous, however, will appear at the top of your search results.

If a substance you search for appears on any of the 21 lists, or is part of a functional substance group listed in these inventories, it will appear in RED.

Any such substances should be a top priority for phasing out and substituting!

If on the other hand the evaluation result is GREY, it means the substance is probably not related to the most problematic substances, but care should still be taken, even if it might not be top priority. Please note especially the case of functional groups mentioned above.

We recommend that you add all your substances, grey as well as red, to your “Working List”, since it will give you a good overview of what you have. Your working list can then form the basis for your chemicals management system. Just click “ADD” for each chemical you want to move to your “Working List”.

You can also share your “Working List” with colleagues by clicking the “Share” button, or export your current working list to Excel.

For red substances, you can see which lists and list categories they appear in; just click the “INFO” box and all lists which include that substance will appear.