As a distributor your main responsibility is to pass information up and down the supply chain, between the manufacturers, formulators and users of chemicals. This is key for making sure all these actors receive the relevant information they need to comply with their respective REACH requirements and improve the safe use of chemicals in Europe.

In the case of a hazardous substance or mixture you must provide a safety data sheet (SDS), or an extended safety data sheet (eSDS) backed up by exposure scenarios (ESs), and make sure that it is in the respective national language and includes information required by the national legislation, for example, on health and safety or disposal of waste.

For articles containing substances of very high concern, you have a duty to provide customers with sufficient information to allow the safe use of the article, including, as a minimum, the name of the dangerous substance.

If you sell to consumers, make sure that hazardous products are labelled and packaged correctly. Read more about this on the Getting started page for distributors.

Communication up the supply chain

Your customers have the right and in some cases the obligation to communicate information back up the supply chain. They have the right to make a use known upstream to their supplier, with the aim that this use may eventually be covered by the registration. This communication may also be done through the sector organisations by way of a sector use map.

Your customers also have the obligation to communicate upstream any new information on hazardous properties, regardless of the uses concerned, and any other information that might call into question the appropriateness of the risk management measures identified in a safety data sheet supplied to them. For this reason, as a distributor, you should have mechanisms in place to facilitate this upstream communication.