EU vs UK CLP: What’s different and what can we expect?

When Brexit happened 3 years ago, it affected the chemical regulation relationships between UK and the rest of Europe.

Thus, the CLP Regulation was transposed into UK law after Brexit. Importantly, adaptation of the CLP Regulation to UK territory has led to differences in hazard classification, labeling, and communication between the EU and the UK.

The UK government has always stated his intention to maintain high levels of protection for human health and the environment, keeping an eye in adapting its regulations to the parallel progress in EU with the CLP Regulation. However, the aforementioned “split up” between UK and EU has marked the start of divergences regarding the EU CLP and the UK regulation.

One area of divergence is the SDS configuration. The EU Updated Regulation (EU) 2020/878 aligned the SDS format with the GHS 8th revised edition and established a transition period allowing the previous format (according to Regulation 2015/830) to be used until December 2022. Therefore, SDS must meet Regulation (EU) 2020/878 starting January 2023 in all European territory under CLP Regulation. On the other hand, UK has not implemented the new GHS revision yen, hence SDS are generated following the “old” format. Relevantly, some differences between the two types of SDS are related to new warnings for nanoforms and endocrine disrupting chemicals, new sections in the SDS, new parameters in section 9.1, among others. For further information please read the following article of our news section.

Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that for meeting EU regulatory affairs, an EU legal entity must be listed on the SDS and label. This implies that a British company selling a product in the EU, will have to use an EU legal entity for its EU SDS and labels, and vice versa.

Another difference between UK and EU CLP is the mandatory use of unique formula identifier (UFI) codes and creation of the PCN dossiers. Whereas there is no obligation to generate or submit a UFI code in Great Britain, it is mandatory for Norther Ireland - where the EU CLP Regulation applies and there is a requirement to provide specific information on their products to the NPIS. Also note that in the UK the NPIS will register a product with its associated UFI if one has already been generated in previous notifications. More information.

As a result of the aforementioned differences between EU and UK CLP Regulations, together with it is expected a complete reformulation of the EU CLP before 2024, both regulations seem to keep growing apart.

This proves the relevance of using a software adapted constantly with the latest international regulation updates. Chemeter offers a unique solution to businesses involved in the export/import of hazardous chemicals between the UK and the EU, as well as any to any other country in the world.

With Chemeter, you are guaranteed to meet hazard classification, labeling, and communication practices of your products regardless of where you send them.