Our goal is zero harm, not as a statistical target but as a moral imperative, which will be achieved by establishing a strong proactive safety culture.
Policies and practices
The Board recognises the highest levels of safety are required to protect employees, contractors, product users and the public. The Board believes that all incidents and injuries are preventable, and that every employee has the right to return home safely at the end of every working day. The Group Chief Executive has overall responsibility for health, safety and environmental (“HSE”) matters across the Group.
The Group HSE Director reports directly to the Group Chief Executive and is responsible for the ongoing development and assurance of the Group’s HSE strategy, our Journey to Zero Harm. As a member of the Executive Committee, they report on the HSE performance of all businesses against agreed HSE limits and objectives.
The Group Chief Executive reports monthly to the Board on all key HSE KPIs.
The Board requires that all businesses systematically manage their health and safety hazards, through regular reviews and monitoring. Each managing director is responsible for the ongoing compliance of health and safety within their business, and for providing adequate resources to satisfy the Board’s requirements. All managing directors have health, safety and environmental related objectives incorporated within their annual incentive plan.
Managers and supervisors in the Group’s businesses are required to ensure compliance with procedures, providing leadership and commitment to promote the progression to a proactive culture, through the continued embedding of a solid calculative culture. We measure our culture against the Parker Hudson Model. The Board emphasises the importance of individual responsibility for health and safety at all levels of the organisation, and expects employees to report all hazards, to be involved in implementing solutions and to adhere to the Fundamental Safety Principles (FSPS), which are underpinned by local rules and procedures.
The continuous improvement of health and safety management relies on collaboration at all levels resulting in the sharing of best practice and lessons learnt from incidents across the Group’s businesses and the wider industry. Accidents, incidents and near misses are investigated, with actions generated to prevent recurrence.
Control of major accident hazards
Our Countermeasures & Energetics businesses are required to manage major accident hazards which are governed by stringent legislation within their respective operating countries. We have implemented several processes to enhance our focus in this area by ensuring we design, maintain and operate with integrity. We continue to invest in modern processes and technology to remove our employees from exposure to energetic hazards, along with increased scrutiny on the application of process hazard analysis. Our progress this year can be viewed through our four strategic pillars which are People, Plant, Processes and Organisation.
People
This year has seen all business units confirmed as operating within a Calculative Safety Culture. Our data continues to mature, as we progress toward establishing a Proactive Safety Culture, providing valuable insights in reducing and controlling our Major Hazards whilst generating the right discussions at all levels of our organisation. The SWIM process is now fully embedded with evidence confirming our employees are confident to stop the process, warn their coworkers, inform their manager and where required help manage the upset condition to a safe outcome.
Plant
Work continues to focus on maturing data from our Asset Integrity Maintenance Management Systems, enabling insights into engineering solutions that will further reduce our risk exposure and provide increased production resilience.
Processes
Our Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) Protocols are now embedded within all of our manufacturing facilities with business units developing detailed ESD plans.
Further maturity of our Major Accident, Hazard, Scenario (MAHRS) process, has led to further understanding of our residual risks and throughout the year we have taken proactive steps to reduce these to a level as low as is reasonably practicable. Improving our systems is enabling active reviews and assessments of any residual risks remaining. We are also developing with a third party, a platform that will continuously test the effectiveness of our barriers to prevent harm.
Organisation
This year has seen strong leadership reaction to signals within our data that help inform safety stand downs confirming that safe delivery is the only delivery acceptable.
We continue to share information through our communities of practice including the quarterly Shared Learning with our senior leadership teams and our Executive Committee who meet to discuss learnings from previous events. Our Technical Safety Community, and our Technical Learning Group including Engineering, Operational and Site Services communities comes together to discuss in more detail the Shared Learning from programme delivery and recent events.
KPI performance
Total Recordable Injuries
The Group has an objective limit of 0.9 for Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIF). The rate remained below the limit at 0.48 for the reporting period. This represents a year-on-year reduction. A continued focus across the Group remains on reduction plans linked to musculoskeletal injuries (MSD), which are actively managed by the businesses. The data has reconfirmed trends regarding musculoskeletal injuries due to the manual handling nature of some of our processes, together with slips, trips and falls.
Process Safety Events
The Group defines a Process Safety Event depending on the potential or actual severity risk and these relate to a level 1, 2 or 3 rated event. Level 3 being the events with the highest potential or actual severity and consequence. We set a limit of below 2 for PSEs at level 2 and 3 per 100 production employees. The Group performance for the year was 1.89. This reduction has continued year on year as businesses have focused on reporting accuracy, organisational knowledge and maturing asset integrity management. No Process Safety Events resulted in injuries as a result of direct energetic events.
Personal Exposure
The personal exposure metric was introduced for this reporting period, as part of the maturity of data and analysis of our process safety events. As a Group, we focus on removing our colleagues from processes to reduce exposure to our hazardous materials. Our personnel exposure rate focuses on exposure during our level 2 and 3 events. An initial limit of 1.5 was introduced, with the performance of 1.64. Analysis of trends from our events and robust preventive management forms part of the future activities to mature and remove exposure in our businesses.
HIPO’s
This year High Potential Incidents (HIPO) increased to 25 compared to 14 in 2024. A number of these led to significant safety standdowns initiated by the businesses to ensure that our FSPs were fully known, understood and effective. All the HIPO events have been thoroughly investigated, with robust corrective and preventive action plans enacted. Changes in support systems such as permit to work and contractor control have been adopted. No significant injuries or business interruptions resulted from any of the HIPOs.
Near Misses
Additionally, we also place an emphasis on near miss and hazard reporting as a leading indicator of our maturing safety culture. This year we had 3018 occupational safety near miss and hazard reports, compared to 3,090 in 2024. This reduction reflects site safety standdowns and increased site adjustments to interval based scheduled maintenance.
HSE strategy forward outlook
At present all our BU’s continue with the deployment and implementation of Group wide HSE programmes designed to establish those businesses as solid upper quartile calculative. Once verified by Group HSE, each BU will then develop a bespoke plan confirming a path to establishing a Proactive Safety culture. The plan will be tailored to their risk profile, as defined by their MAHRS assurance process outcomes. In addition, Group HSE will act as a conduit to other BU’s by sharing any learning to help accelerate their progress. Plans will be monitored by Group HSE and assured through the LOD2 Process. Once Group HSE are satisfied, ERM the global leading health and safety consultancy service, will be invited back to independently review and validate our findings declaring the BU as Proactive.