CERES (ChEmical Register for Environment, health and Safety) is a user-friendly web tool for chemical safety that the Organization developed and launched in 2020. It gives an overview of all liquid, solid and gaseous chemicals present on CERN’s sites. CERES stores and makes easily accessible safety information, the precise location of the chemicals and data on chemical and environmental risk assessments and the mitigation measures in place.

A map view makes accessible safety information, which is very useful for the CERN Fire and Rescue service during emergency interventions. The map is also useful for assessing the risks within a building or an area. The Environmental Protection group uses CERES to identify environmentally sensitive activities and areas on CERN sites, and to increase interaction across the departments to improve pollution prevention measures.

CERES is complemented with a centralised catalogue of chemicals to make it easier to update and keep track of the products used at CERN. New chemicals are recorded by users and validated by CERN’s chemical safety experts.

In terms of chemical safety, the database is an essential tool as the first step in effective chemical risk management, in order to:

• identify the presence on-site of particularly toxic or dangerous chemicals, while performing risk assessment;
• identify and eliminate unknown substances or out-of-date chemicals;
• ensure the separation of incompatible chemicals in storage, for accident prevention.

CERN is now making CERES freely available for use under certain conditions.