Our objectives…
- To value – above all things – the safety of our people and our communities
- To continuously improve our performance in protecting the environment, health, and safety of our workforce, neighbors, and the public
- To work with our distributors, customers, and suppliers to improve the way we handle, transport, and use our products
Goals to Reduce EH&S Incidents
Our objective is to significantly improve Dow's performance (from a 1994 baseline) by reducing:
- Injuries and illnesses per 200,000 work hours by 90 percent
- Fatalities – Dow Employees and Contractors
- Loss of primary containment incidents (leaks, breaks, and spills) by 90 percent
- Transportation incidents per 10,000 shipments by 90 percent
- Process safety incidents (fires, explosions, and significant chemical releases) by 90 percent
- Motor vehicle incidents per one million miles by 50 percent
- Repeat incidents with Dow product at customer facilities by 50 percent (in this case, from 2001 levels)
Dow’s Vision for EH&S performance is zero:
- zero injuries and illnesses
- zero incidents
- zero environmental harm
While this may not be very realistic from a mathematical perspective, it’s the only option in terms of employee health and safety. Our "Vision of Zero" means we will not tolerate injuries and illness among our workforce and environmental impact. We continue working on achieving these aggressive goals.
Because of that aggressiveness, last year we had the best safety performance ever in the history of our Company. Our annual combined Dow employee and contractor injury and illness recordable rate was an all time low of 0.50. That's a 81 percent improvement from our 1994 baseline performance. We're improving results through behavior-based programs, including peer observation, intervention programs, pre-task hazard analysis, and root-cause investigations. We also have a new program in place aimed at reducing the more severe injuries that did occur last year. The reality, however, is that we lost two co-workers. Losing even one person is one too many. Our company's strong values and commitment to disciplined processes make up the foundation of our continued improvement in safety – in our journey to a workplace where no one is injured.
In 2004, Dow reaffirmed its alliance with the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA). Dow was the first company in the chemical industry and first Fortune 100 company to forge an alliance with OSHA. The alliance focuses on Dow's technical knowledge and guidance on Process Safety Management and Ergonomics. OSHA uses alliances to collaborate with organizations committed to safety to communicate ‘best practice’ knowledge to workplaces throughout the U.S. to prevent injuries and illnesses.
One measure of a company’s commitment to improving EH&S performance is the amount of capital expenditures for EH&S projects relative to total capital expenditures. Even with Dow's commitment to reduce capital spending, the actual spending on EH&S projects actually increased last year.
Injury and Illness Rate, Dow Employees and Contractors – Goal: 90% Reduction
In 2005, we realized a 20 percent improvement in our safety performance – including both Dow employees and contractors. We ended the year with another best-ever performance of a 0.40 recordable injury & illness rate, representing an 84 percent improvement since 1994. Over 70 percent of our facilities had no incidents at all.
But it’s not about numbers: it's about people. As of December 2005, over 12,900 people were NOT hurt as a result of our performance improvement since 1994. In other words, had we remained at our 1994 performance levels, that many more people would have been hurt. Safety continues to be our main focus.
Fatalities – Dow Employees and Contractors
Preventing fatalities is our highest priority. The three fatalities that we experienced last year were from an employee motor vehicle accident in Brazil, a contractor electrocution in Texas, and complication arising from shoulder surgery on an employee in Michigan. We continue to investigate all incidents, particularly these most serious ones, in order to identify improvements to our safety management systems. Our goal continues to be zero fatalities.
Leaks, Breaks and Spills – Goal: 90% Reduction
Continuing our focus on effective implementation of our LOPC (loss of primary containment) Reduction Initiative, we achieved an 8 percent reduction in leaks, breaks and spills in 2005. This measure includes loss of containment of materials, whether lost to the environment or captured in engineered containment systems. The goal focuses us on operational excellence – keeping materials where they are intended to be. This represents a 72 percent improvement since 1994. We will continue to focus on these incidents to further reduce them.
Transportation Incidents – Goal: 90% Reduction
The chemical industry’s record for safely transporting hazardous materials is excellent. For example, on a worldwide basis, Dow manages hazardous material shipments each year with an extremely low accident rate. Over 99.97% of our shipments reach their destination without incident. Fewer than 2 shipments per 1,000,000 involve an accident that results in the release of a hazardous material – and none of those have involved chemical exposure-related personal injuries. Our ultimate goal is to have zero incidents.
At the same time we continue to promote the implementation of our Behavior Based Safety (BBS) program at our logistics service providers on a global basis, as well the usage of industry assessment protocols. These programs have a proven impact on the overall safety management systems, safety awareness and behavior of employees and will further reduce the number and severity of incidents.
During the fourth quarter, five serious and moderate Transportation Incidents happened, totaling to 33 in 2005. The Transportation Incident Rate for 2005 is 0.19 (per 10,000 shipments) and is slightly higher than in 2004. Of these 33 incidents, three involved a hazardous chemical release. We continue to operate with high performance. For the subset of the 2005 goal with HazMat shipment incidents resulting in spills, the 2005 rate is 0.017 (per 10,000 shipments), which corresponds to 6.14 sigma performance and is the best result ever. By the end of 2005, we achieved a 65% reduction of serious and moderate incidents and a 94% reduction in serious and moderate incidents with a hazardous material release versus the 1994 baseline. The continuous implementation of the BBP principles and increasing application of industry assessment protocols at our logistic service providers have created a higher awareness in safe shipping of chemicals and a better understanding of the chemical industry expectations.
Process Safety Incidents – Goal: 90% Reduction
This goal tracks:
- Fires & Explosions incidents with property damage greater than $25,000.
- Chemical releases involving chemical processing equipment if they have resulted in a release above a defined threshold quantity
- Serious injury or fatality caused by a fire, explosion or chemical release from a chemical process
This definition of a Process Safety Incident is consistent with the American Chemistry Council definition for a Process Safety Code Measurement (PCSM).
In 2005, we completed a 10 year long drive to reduce process safety incidents as compared to the 1994 baseline; we accomplished a 72 percent reduction in these types of events. Dow has now launched a new 10-year initiative to accomplish further reductions. Continued emphasis on implementation of mechanical integrity inspections, process safety best practices, and near miss identification/reporting will drive future performance improvements.
Motor Vehicle Incident Rate – Goal: 50% Reduction
The motor vehicle measure is the number of vehicle accidents per million miles driven. These will range from minor fender benders that exceed a threshold dollar damage limit, to more serious accidents involving injuries. In 2005, we reduced our accident rate to 3.1 (9% decrease). We continue to target groups such as Sales & Marketing who spend the bulk of their time on the road, visiting customers. A global project team continues to develop innovative solutions that will move us closer to achieving the 2005 goal. These solutions will be piloted in 2006 in our North American Sales & Marketing organization.
Repeat Incidents at Customer Facilities – Goal: 50% Reduction
The purpose of this goal was to identify recurring EH&S issues our customers face with Dow products and to implement actions to prevent future incidents. Prior to the goal being announced, Dow had no established processes for reporting, recording and investigating incidents at customer facilities, thus the first few years were devoted to putting such processes in place and refining them. The baseline year was finally set as Dow’s performance in 2001.
Our initial impact was significant. Within the first three years, our highest severity incidents decreased from 13 percent of all incidents to less than 3 percent. From 2001 to the end of 2005, overall performance improved by 33 percent, a significant achievement, although short of our 50 percent goal. Our success with incident reduction is related to the following three business activities 1) a systematic review of customer incident data to identify trends and root causes, 2) an effective partnership with carriers, logistic providers and customers, and 3) a genuine desire from all parties to see performance improvement.
Useful information on EH&S-related issues can be obtained from:
International Council of Chemical Associations
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC)
American Chemistry Council
Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
