Health and Safety

HEALTH AND SAFETY

"If we can't do it safely, we don't do it at all."


Borealis' longstanding goal of creating a culture of health and safety awareness and achieving zero accidents is encapsulated in the motto, "If we can't do it safely, we don't do it at all."


The Responsible Care® global charter sets the framework for ensuring excellence in the area of occupational health and safety at Borealis.


Health and safety experts in all Borealis locations deliver health and safety competence and expertise. They ensure standards are applied, develop risk management tools, share experience, ensure best practice development and train both Borealis employees and its contractors.


However Borealis' approach to safety goes beyond its operations to include safety issues in the office environment. Safety awareness campaigns also target travel and extracurricular sports.
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OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY
THE CHALLENGE
PROVIDING A SAFE WORKING ENVIRONMENT
Chemicals operations involve highly flammable and hazardous substances, therefore, at Borealis health and safety always come first. Since many years Borealis has achieved a world-class track record in health and safety, yet we always need to remain vigilant. To maintain a high top-of-mind status for safety culture, the company has created and constantly promotes the motto, "if we can't do it safely, we won't do it at all.
THE APPROACH
TARGETING ZERO INJURIES THROUGH PREVENTION
Borealis tracks the number of Total Recordable Injuries (TRI) per million working hours. Recordable injuries are those which require medical treatment, restrict work, or result in lost working hours. Both Borealis employees and contractors are tracked. A TRI frequency of 2 or less is considered world-class in the industry.Borealis has set an ambitious TRI target of 1.1 and continuously works towards zero TRI.
REFERENCE PROJECTS/ACTIVITIES
NEAR MISS AND INCIDENT REPORTING SYSTEM
A near miss is an incident that under slightly different circumstances could have ended up in an accident. Borealis also tracks near-misses for both employees' and contractors' activities. This enables Borealis to early identify potential safety risks and to address them with tangible safety measures. Major incidents are discussed at various levels in the organisation and a central database, Synergi®, is used as a tool for reporting and accident learning analysis throughout Borealis.
OBSERVATION TOURS - COMMITMENT AND VISIBILITY
High management visibility and regular contact with employees and contractors is gained through periodic observation tours. Each year, around 15,000 such tours are performed throughout the company's departments, plants and office areas. The tours are designed to spot potential safety risks, promote dialogue between management and employees and encourage positive behaviour changes in daily work routines.
CONTRACTORS HEALTH & SAFETY
Borealis is committed to providing a safe working environment for its employees and also its contractors. Contractors are involved in every aspect of its safety programme to ensure a good alignment, e.g. regular safety meetings, joint incident investigations and observation tours. After observing an increase in incidents among its contractors, Borealis initiated the Contractor Management (COMA) programme in 2012. COMA focuses specifically on improving their safety performance.
BOREALIS' "5 LIFE SAVING RULES"
Borealis takes action to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for its employees and contractors. A key component of the Borealis Life Saving Rules is the idea that each Borealis employee has a shared responsibility for others: 'care for my colleague' means encouraging employees to report incidents, actively participate in investigations and contribute to making Borealis operations safer for all.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
THE CHALLENGE
BALANCING LIFE AT WORK AND AT HOME
A holistic "Wellbeing" concept and approach has been developed during 2015 highlighting the co-responsibility of the company, leaders and employees and their representatives in establishing a work environment in which the Wellbeing of the employee is supported and enabled over the life-time of an employee's career with Borealis. This integrated and comprehensive approach towards the topic of Wellbeing focuses on the four core areas of Health, Job Engagement, Competence and Work & Private Life Balance, identifying and building on best practices available in the organisation and setting shared goals and minimum standards.
THE APPROACH
SUCCESS IS BEST ACHIEVED BY ALL
Borealis targets a sick leave rate of 3.2% or less which is below the average industry rate in the countries where Borealis operates. To achieve this, Borealis actively promotes healthy behaviour and has set in place an extensive employee health programme. Borealis offers physical examinations and subsequent check-ups, periodic screenings and evaluations. Employees may participate in voluntary health counselling programmes to identify and monitor health problems. Detailed chemical exposure monitoring is carried out in accordance with demanding global standards. Borealis also conducts a company-wide workplace health survey every five years to evaluate hazards in operations and office environments. Alongside the prevention of health and safety risks, occupational illnesses and accidents, the health surveys place considerable focus on the psycho-social aspects of the work and work-life balance.
REFERENCE PROJECTS
TAKE CARE – SPEAK UP!
This training campaign was launched at Borealis' Porvoo, Finland location in 2012 to improve line managers' skills in dealing with issues that may arise around employee well-being. Based on the feedback of the Borealis employee satisfaction workplace survey, the programme was developed by the Employee Well-Being Group in collaboration with an external training partner. Line managers have been trained in the fundamentals of constructive interaction and conflict reconciliation in training sessions involving both theory and practical exercises.
GETTING OLDER, WORKING LONGER
The EU is the only major world region where the total population is projected to decline in the next 40 years - a significant shift in age demographics. In the coming years, Borealis will face a dual challenge: maintaining an effective and skilled workforce in the face of a reduced working population in the EU, whilst ensuring the health and motivation of an aging workforce. A task force documented existing initiatives, collected and analysed data from internal and external sources in order to create a proposal that included recommendations for future 55+ generations. It focuses on four key areas: health, job satisfaction, knowledge and work/social life balance.
BOREALIS IN BALANCE
At Borealis locations in Belgium, a programme was started to reduce sick leave and have healthy, motivated employees. The project was developed in cooperation with the Flemish Institute for Health Promotion and Sickness Prevention (ViGez). It promotes a healthy diet at work and home, and also encourages employees to undertake physical exercise at work, travelling from home to work and during leisure time. Employees were invited to take part in a voluntary physical fitness test, during which they received a personalised health improvement plan. To encourage healthy eating, actions included calorie details on food and drinks, increased availability of healthy meals and snacks, info sessions and workshops as well as informational flyers and leaflets. The physical condition improvement programme includes elements such as sports, "Bike to work" and "Start to run" campaigns, and follow-up fitness test evaluations.