Penman Consulting News

On the 27^th to the 29^th of September Helen Penman and James Orr attended the Product Stewardship conference 2018 in Washington DC.

Helen and James gave us a review of their time at the conference:

What is Product Stewardship?

Product Stewardship is the safe, compliant, sustainable management of products, from their design through manufacture to the end of life of the product. (Find out more about Penman Consulting’s Product Stewardship and Regulatory Affairs offering here)

The Product Stewardship Conference

The Product Stewardship Conference brings together Product Stewardship professionals from a wide range of industries and provides educational, networking opportunities and a forum for sharing best practice.

Who was there?

“We spoke to Product Stewards who manage different aspects of the product life-cycle, from manufacturers of raw ingredients for chemicals for paints to Product Stewards who manage the life-cycle of articles with many component parts like office printers or laptops/computers.

The Conference attracts a diverse crowd of Toxicologists (How do you grow a Toxicologist?), Industrial Hygienists, Chemical Engineers, and Regulatory Affairs specialists, all of whom work in Product Stewardship!

Product Stewardship is championed more in America than it is in the UK, so it was good to gain the perspective of the largely American based attendees, from smaller companies aiming to improve their Product Stewardship practice to large industry-leading companies that have been involved in Product Stewardship for years.”

What did you learn?

“We were lucky enough to attend Gail Hart’s all-day training session called  ‘Essentials of Product Stewardship‘ where we were able to learn from his expertise and to discuss the issues affecting other Product Stewards in their day to day business lives.

These are just some of the things we learnt during the training session and the conference:

• Communication up and down the supply chain is an issue, whether you are trying to get information from your own suppliers or whether you need to supply information on your own products to your customers further down the chain. Wherever you are in the chain, information is precious and time-consuming to chase.
• Product Stewards need to know their regulatory frameworks backward, forwards and inside out to be able to understand how changes may impact their products whilst keeping one eye on the horizon for new issues.
• For new products to be ‘green’ and not just ‘eco-washed’ Product Stewards should be involved at the beginning of the design process. The end of a product’s life doesn’t have to mean its usefulness is over. Products are now being designed with sustainability in mind and big businesses are starting to look beyond reducing their carbon footprints and into becoming carbon neutral or even carbon negative.”

Highlights:

“Some highlights from our time in Washington DC were:

• The training session with Gail Hart, who “wrote the book” on Product Stewardship, which laid the foundation of understanding for the rest of the Conference.
• There were 30-minute slots between sessions with coffee so that we could meet people, catch up with our clients and pick up important emails from work (of course).
• The networking reception that was very well attended and gave us the opportunity to meet new people in a less formal atmosphere.
• The quality of the speakers for presentations was excellent and the facilities were first class, even if we were four-floors under Washington DC for most of the Conference!”

Anything else?

“We made the most of our time there with a touristy city bus tour. We saw the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument and ate with colleagues in a great restaurant, Georgia Browns – would recommend it!

The conference was a great opportunity for us to gain further understanding of the challenges that our clients face in their own companies, allowing us to further support their needs.”

Find out more about Helen Penman here: 
How do you grow a Product Steward?