Right materials Eliminating unsafe materials from our operations

The ABB List of Prohibited and Restricted Substances serves as our guide in reducing and, where possible, eliminating our use of hazardous materials. This list applies to all our operations, including procurement, product development, production processes, products, packaging materials, service activities and construction sites. We update the list twice a year in keeping with international regulations, in particular the EU REACH regulation.

To help suppliers meet their obligations – which include partnering with us to identify and prevent restricted substances and conflict minerals from entering ABB’s supply chain – we have developed a companion guide to the above-mentioned list. ABB’s Global Terms and Conditions for suppliers and our Supplier Code of Conduct address prohibited and restricted substances in the context of regulatory compliance.

In 2021, we launched 16 new projects to reduce and phase out hazardous substances. Due to the variety and specialized nature of our Group’s products and processes, the reduction of hazardous substances is typically addressed on a site-by-site basis.

Under our new business model, described in ABB’s 2020 Sustainability Report, our Business Areas assumed full ownership of their respective product material compliance duties. These include ensuring that ABB complies with EU requirements for chemicals and products listed in the Substances of Concern in Products (SCIP) database. One example of the success of this approach is the screening program developed by ABB Electrification and its suppliers, which monitors and eliminates hazardous substances from components supplied to ABB. In 2021, through this program, we gathered data on more than 370,000 components and worked with more than 10,000 active suppliers to satisfy our mutual obligations under the European Union’s REACH and RoHS regulations.