This tool developed by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is a plug-in to IUCLID 5 designed to help companies to carry out their Chemical Safety Assessments (CSA) and preparing their Chemical Safety Reports (CSR). This new version of the tool enables the users to generate the exposure scenarios for communication to downstream users.

The CHEmical Safety Assessment and Reporting tool, Chesar, provides the structured workflow for carrying out a standard safety assessment for the different uses of a substance. At the same time, the tool is flexible enough to also accommodate assessments in more specific situations. Chesar also helps to structure the information needed for the exposure assessment and risk characterisation which will facilitate the generation and updating of a transparent Chemical Safety Reports (CSR) carried out within the Chemical Safety Assessment (CSA).

As with previous versions, Chesar 1.2 can be installed on IUCLID 5.3. The new Chesar 1.2 installation packages (for standalone and distributed versions) are available on the Chesar website Detailed installation manuals are also available on the Chesar download page. Besides, together with the possibility to generate exposure scenarios for communication, other new features have been added to Chesar 1.2.

All users of the Chesar software are welcomed to give their feedback to the European Chemical Agency via the ECHA helpdesk online form, so opinions and suggestions can be taken into account in successive versions of the tool.

Using Chesar for Chemical Safety

To use Chesar a registrant needs to have sufficient information available on the properties, volumes of use and conditions of use of the substance. Based on these inputs the tool calculates exposure estimates that are compared to the predicted no-effect levels. The purpose of this comparison is to determine whether safe use of a substance can be established. Workers’ exposure estimations provided by Chesar are calculated using the “ECETOC TRA worker” tool. Environmental exposure estimates provided by Chesar are based on the EUSES 2.1 fate model. Chesar also supports the use of other exposure estimation tools or measured data.