Safety program and performance

Continually Improving Our People and Process Safety

Safety first

One of Nouryon’s Values is ‘We do it right’ and this includes a culture of safety awareness to protect our people, contractors, customers, communities, and the environment.

Our Safety Ambition: Zero injuries, waste and harm

We have leading management systems in place to drive continuous improvement in safety, but we also believe that safety needs to be embedded in our culture at every level. To increase awareness and strengthen our safety culture, we proactively report on leading parameters such as near misses - an event which had no impact but had the potential to result in injury, ill-health, or damage to assets or the environment; and hazards - any condition or situation that could potentially harm people, products, or the environment.

In addition, we use a Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) program at all locations to identify unsafe behaviors and spark behavioral change of employees and contractors to reduce potential hazards in the workplace. These observations are performed regularly and in a structured way based on the location’s observation strategy. Once a year, we also organize a company-wide Safety Day, last held in September 2021, to promote safety awareness and strengthen its global safety culture.

We conduct internal audits on 100% of our sites at least once every 3 years for HSE&S.

Decrease in Recordable Injury Rate

49% Recordable incident rate decrease between 2018 and 2021

Decrease of Process Safety Incident Rate

74% Process safety incident rate decrease between 2018 and 2021

13 Responsible Care® Facility Safety Awards

Awarded 13 Responsible Care® Facility Safety Awards by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) in 2021

People Safety

Top-quartile performer in people safety

Safety performance recognition

As in recent years, our safety performance was acknowledged in 2021 by external organizations around the world. The awards included:

  • Canada National (CN) Railway Company Safe Handling Gold Award: Nouryon’s safe rail loadings of hazardous goods and regulated products in the US throughout the year were lauded with CN’s top prize. Launched in 1992, the Safe Handling Award is an integral part of ongoing performance improvement initiative of the Responsible Care ® Program.
  • 13 Responsible Care® Facility Safety Awards from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), in recognition of our exceptional employee health and safety performance, as well as our commitment to sustainability. Eleven of the awards were given for Excellence and two were Honor Responsible Care® Facility Safety Awards for the following Nouryon facilities in the US:
    • Excellence: Augusta, GA; Columbus, MS; Bridgewater, NJ; Brewster, NY; Lima, OH; Battleground, Fort Worth and Pasadena, TX; Moses Lake, WA; and Green Bay and Howard, WI.
    • Honor: Chattanooga, TN, and Salisbury, NC.
  • 2021 Texas Chemistry Council Caring for Texas Award: for the first time, all of Nouryon’s Texas (US) sites were acknowledged in the same year – Battleground (sixth consecutive award), Pasadena (five prior awards), Houston (two prior awards) and Fort Worth (two prior awards).
  • Environmental Excellence Award, City of Forth Worth/ Pretreatment Services: Pretreatment Associate awarded to Nouryon, Fort Worth, TX (US) for two years of 100% compliance with pretreatment regulations.
  • Chilean Safety Association Certification of COVID-19 Contagion Risk Management: Nouryon Talcahuano, Chile.
  • Responsible Care® Merit Award from the Association of International Chemical Manufacturers (AICM) in recognition of Nouryon’s distinguished performance in the fields of sustainability and responsible care in China. Four Nouryon employees also received 2020 Key Contributor Awards honoring their efforts in industrial policy advocacy and hazardous-chemical safety management.

Learn more

 

People and Process safety


People safety

It is our belief that every injury is preventable, and we uphold an ambition to have zero injuries in the workplace. We have succeeded in reducing the number of incidents considerably over the years and our Total Reportable Injury Rate (TRR) ranks in the top quartile of American Chemistry Council members.

safety stats 2021.jpg

Our Life-Saving Rules

 

"We are proud to be a leader in people safety. Safety sits at the heart of
Nouryon’s success and it is essential for every one of us to take ownership of our own and others’ safety."

Charlie Shaver, Chairman and CEO

Process Safety

We established a Process Safety Management (PSM) approach for all operations in 2015, in alignment with industry standards and best practices. Our process PSM framework is designed to prevent incidents, and keep our facilities and people safe. PSM applies a management system and controls at all manufacturing sites, so that hazards are assessed, understood and managed.

In 2021, we continued to raise awareness and improve reporting of process safety indicators. As our performance in process safety has improved, we have shifted our focus to leading indicators, i.e., low impact events and systems that could lead to more serious events. We review all incidents and near misses on a weekly basis. The total number of incidents involving a (Levels 1 and 2) process safety event (PSE) decreased by 78% between 2018 and 2021.

Cases - Improving safety and environment

Case: São Paulo’s Paulínia plant: 30 record years without injury

August 2021 marked an impressive anniversary for 30 years without work-related incidents at our site in Paulínia, São Paulo, Brazil.

Case: Reducing Emissions Through Renewable Energy

Our Mons, Belgium site purchases 100% renewable electricity. In 2021, we shifted 15% of the site’s electricity needs to solar cells.

Case: Frontline Leader Safety training

In 2021, we piloted a new training for site supervisors and leadership teams to improve employee engagement around safety.

Case: Continuously Improving Our Transportation Safety

As part of our commitment to continue improving, we looked more closely at Nouryon logistics in 2021, regarding both environmental impact and safety.

Case: Circular Economy Business Practices in Brazil

In Brazil, our innovative solution contributes to a lower carbon and manufacturing footprint for some of the world’s most essential paper products

"2021 Excellent Company for Global Warming Countermeasures"

Nouryon's Asa site, Japan, recognized for proactive approach to reducing carbon dioxide

Learn more - Nouryon's sustainability pillars

Improving our safety performance and environmental footprint

We continuously work to improve our safety performance and environmental footprint for the benefit of our employees, contractors, customers, neighbors, and the environment

Growing our sustainable solutions

We provide solutions that are essential in applications ranging from pharmaceuticals and farming to electric cars and building insulation. Our goal is to deliver not just the desired functionality but improved sustainability performance as well.

Engaging people, partners, and society

At Nouryon, we aim to achieve sustainable business growth and have a positive impact on people’s everyday lives through our essential solutions as well as our actions.

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