October 2025 Edition

ChemRegs Newsletter – October 2025

ECHA CHEM Update

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has updated their new public chemicals database, ECHA CHEM, with overviews of regulatory processes and obligation lists.

The third expansion of ECHA CHEM follows the initial launch of the database in January 2024, which featured information on over 100 000 REACH registrations submitted by companies. It has since been updated to include the redesigned EU Classification and Labelling (C&L) Inventory.

In this latest release, ECHA CHEM now incorporates regulatory processes and lists from four chemicals regulations and directives.

EU REACH Regulation

  • The list of substances restricted under REACH and the restriction process;
  • The Authorisation List and ECHA’s recommendations for including substances in the Authorisation List;
  • Substances of very high concern (SVHC) and the Candidate List;
  • Dossier and substance evaluation.

EU Drinking Water Directive (DWD)

  • European positive lists (EUPL).

EU Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulation (CLP)

  • Annex VI – the list of substances with EU harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) and the CLH process.

EU Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Regulation

  • The lists of substances subject to POPs Regulation and substances proposed as POPs.

These lists will, except for the new DWD European positive lists, also continue to be available under the Search for chemicals section on ECHA’s website. However, as ECHA CHEM continues to expand with more data sets, the old Search for chemicals pages will be gradually decommissioned.

Key EU regulatory data, the new EU Classification & Labelling (C&L) Inventory, and EU REACH Registration data are now to be found in ECHA CHEM. The old EU C&L Inventory is no longer updated and the old ‘Registered substance factsheets’ have not been updated since 19 May 2023, and will be removed from ECHA’s main website by the end of 2025. The ‘Brief Profile’ pages will also be decommissioned by the end of 2025. The current ‘Substance Infocard’ is also available as the ‘Substance Overview’ page on ECHA CHEM.

New risk calculator for EU Biocide Bee Risk Assessments

ECHA are developing a customised version of the B-risk calculator, in cooperation with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), to assess risks of biocides to bees. The tool is consistent with ECHA’s 2024 guidance on how to perform a risk assessment for bees.

The calculator builds on EFSA’s existing tool for plant protection products. It will incorporate biocide-specific exposure sources and offer a tailored interface. This will allow stakeholders to carry out precise, guidance-compliant assessments of biocides – particularly insecticides and acaricides – under the EU Biocidal Products Regulation, supporting the protection of bees.

It is understood that the biocides version of the B-risk calculator will be released by the end of November 2025.

IMDG

The International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code 2024 Edition (inc. Amendment 42-24) now comes into force on 1 January 2026 (it could be applied voluntarily from 1 January 2025).

This means that the 2022 Edition (inc. Amendment 41-22) of the IMDG Code, which came into force on 1 January 2024, will no longer be valid from 31 December 2025.

For more information on anything in this Newsletter, please contact us at info@chemregs.co.uk

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