Reaching out to the community through CAER
Being accountable to the public and committed to responsible management of products, health and safety is what the CAER Program is all about.
Community Awareness Emergency Response, better known as CAER, has a history dating back to the late 1980s. The Canadian Chemical Producers' Association (CCPA) launched its Responsible Care® Program in 1986. As a result of its involvement with Responsible Care®, Celanese was instrumental in the formation of the local Community Awareness Emergency Response Program in 1990. CAER is one of six codes in Responsible Care®, a made-in-Canada program that has since been embraced by industrial companies in 42 nations around the world.
Since its introduction to the SIA in 1986 and official acceptance in early 1987, the overall goal has been to improve safety in the community and at work. The program has five objectives, which are to:
- Provide information to the public on hazardous chemicals
- Review, renew and enhance emergency response plans
- Expand industry's involvement in community response planning and emergency networks
- Integrate company emergency response plans with other community emergency response plans to form an overall plan for handling all emergencies
- Involve members of the local community in emergency response planning
In its infancy, the community awareness portion of CAER was aimed at developing an inventory of chemicals manufactured or used at local plants. This information was provided to local emergency responders.
Under the emergency response planning side of the CAER program, initial goals were to improve local emergency response planning by combining industries' emergency plans with municipal emergency response to achieve integrated emergency response plans.
A committee was struck in 1988 to develop ways for industry to reach out to its neighbours. Following the public launch of CAER in spring 1990, an early initiative was CAER News, a quarterly newsletter published by the SIA that discussed CAER and general issues relating to industry. In addition to this quarterly update to nearby residents, community events such as CAER Fairs provide opportunities for representatives of industry and their residential neighbours to meet face to face.