Health & Safety
ICL is pursuing top-tier safety performance as a global organization and by all its sites and BU’s, in comparison to respective peer industries. To achieve this, ICL continually strives to improve the safety culture and behaviour of its workforce, by taking proactive action, managing and reducing risks.
Industrial production, in general, and the chemicals industry, in particular, require taking special precautionary measures to maintain a safe and healthy work environment. Some of our products, raw materials and production processes represent a high risk to anyone who deviates from required professional safety standards or from the mandatory means of safety.
Ensuring that our operations, products and distribution systems are safe and secure for employees and our site contractors as well as guests, distributors, suppliers and the communities in which our facilities are located, is part of our ‘Environment, Safety, Health and Security’ policy.
ICL requires and provides the use of safety equipment, for all production employees in general and customized for specific roles and work environments.
ICL has adopted occupational health and safety management systems beyond regulatory requirements in 91% of its production sites. These safety management systems are either OHSAS 18001/RC14001 certified or to equivalent management systems. The certified sites include approximately 98% of our production sites workforce, and 85% of our total global workforce (based on data used in indicator 102-8). Sites that do not have industrial production processes, such as office buildings, do not have safety management systems beyond what is required by law. That includes approximately 14% of our employees.
Despite our continued efforts to reduce work accidents at our sites, in January 2018 a fatal accident occurred involving a contractor worker at ICL YPH, China. The worker’s arm was trapped by an operating conveyor belt while conducting process clean-up work. The production was immediately stopped. Despite the rapid company response and evacuation to the nearest hospital, the injury proved tragically fatal. The accident was investigated by both the company and the authorities. Results indicated that in contrast to the operating rules and procedures, the work was hazardously conducted in proximity to operating equipment (the conveyor belt). In response to this event, ICL has conducted a renewed risk assessment process focusing on conveyor belts. A global safety team was appointed to oversee risk mitigation in all sites where conveyor belts are operated. In some sites, practice conveyor belts have been set-up and are now used for annual live training for operation and maintenance employees. Furthermore, Employees in all relevant sites have been re-trained regarding the obligation to avoid any work in close proximity or under operating/rotating equipment, and the obligation to shut down any such equipment before touching/moving it (if needed). Supervision and compliance checks on these instructions have been enhanced.
Reactive Safety KPI's
| 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rate of work accidents (IR Rate) | 0.98 | 0.82 | 0.79 | 0.69 | 0.73 | 0.82 | 0.73 |
| Rate of lost work days (SI Rate) | 28.4 | 21.7 | 22.9 | 23.5 | 22.5 | 25.6 | 28.6 |
In addition, in 2018, we recorded 118 non-fatal work accidents, of which 76 involved ICL employees and 42 involved contract workers.
A non-fatal work accident is defined by causing at least one-day of absence following the event (LWDC accident). During 2018, company employees total working hours were approximately 21 million. Calculations of both IR and SI rates are conducted based on a 200,000 factor (multiplied by total company employee lost workday cases and absent days, respectively). Due to data availability constraints, Both IR and SI rates are for company employees only. However, contractors safety performance is tracked and monitored regularly for all our sites.
The ICL Global IR rate was reduced by 12% in 2018 compared to 2017, due to decrease in LWDC accidents involving company employees specifically. However, company employees absent days after such accidents have increased, resulting in a 12% increase in the SI rate. The SI (Severity Index) general methodology is based that the assumption that the number of absence days is correlated with the severity of the safety incident. However, ICL’s depth analysis found that the grand majority of the 2018 increase in absent days resulted from 5 specific work accidents that albeit considered un-severe by the company, have caused relatively long work absences (leg-twisting and tripping incidents, resulting in leg injuries that required full recoveries before returning to production roles).
The total number of LWDC incidents has increased by 7% in 2018 compared to 2017. The mentioned decrease in company employees LWDCs was countered by an increase in such accidents involving contractor employees. This increase was partially caused by large on-site CAPEX projects conducted in 2018 in ICL Dead Sea and ICL Iberia, involving extensive work by contractor employees (significantly more than in 2017). Nonetheless, ICL is working with its contractors to increase their involvement in safety management and to ensure that all contractor employees will have the right skills and knowledge to perform their work in a safe way (see below).
To assure ICL’s progress towards its safety goals, the company has set targets of reducing both IR and SI global rates by 10% in 2019, compared with the previous year. These reactive goals have been broken down to the different business units and the KPIs are tracked by each of them and have been set as personal goals for site managers and EHS managers. For details on the company’s proactive safety KPI, see “ICL’s 5 Safety Principles”.
Enhancing Safe Contractor Work
ICL takes responsibility for its contractors and business partners. We ensure that our contractors have the right skills and knowledge to perform their work in a safe way, as part of the company’s vision to establish a leading position in safety practices. During 2018 the company started to perform contractor safety evaluations in order to identify weaknesses and where safety enhancement efforts would be most effective. The evaluated contractors were checked and ranked on specific safety categories such as:
- Number and severity of incidents;
- Whether incidents/hazards are reported to all needed roles;
- Proper usage of safety equipment;
- Safe condition of vehicles and tools used in operation;
- Are safety regulations and instructions maintained;
- Is the work area properly organized;
- Were site-specific safety surveys conducted pre-commencement of work;
The company is working with the evaluated contractors on any identified gaps. In 2019 we plan to further increase our engagement with our contractors, to ensure their safe work.
Employee Health
ICL manages its occupational health & industrial hygiene to recognize, evaluate, and minimize employees’ exposure to occupational health hazards. As a chemical industry company, ICL must manage and reduce the risk of potential hazardous exposure to materials, processes, production and mining. Air quality monitoring is implemented at all relevant facilities. The health of employees is checked regularly, and all required and agreed upon safety equipment is provided to our employees. ICL conducts regular monitoring of environmental and hygiene issues in the occupational work areas, as required by regulations and company procedures. Follow-up actions items range from implementing multi-year dust reduction plans and installing better lighting to providing ergonomically correct equipment. The company also offers periodic medical checkups for employees, and occupational medicine and preventative medicine programs, in cooperation with hospitals and experts in these fields, inside the production sites.
ICL is also working with its contractors to implement regular health checks. For example, ICL contractors in Israel are now required to provide evidence that at least 80% of their employees have undergone a periodic medical checkup, funded by ICL.
Global ICL Safety Week 2018
In November 2018, ICL held its second annual “Global Safety Week”. Thousands of ICL employees participated in a full week of awareness activities, conducted simultaneously at various ICL locations in Israel, U.S., Europe, Brazil and China. The main goal of this annual event is to increase pro-active behavior by employees and managers to reduce and prevent accidents and to emphasize that safety is everyone's responsibility.
Each of the ICL production sites engaged in activities designed to increase safety in their specific production processes. These included site-specific scenario training, technical instruction and incident assessments. Other activities were held in ICL offices as well. These included safe driving training and car-accident simulators, home safety training, lectures and drills on earthquake scenarios, office ergonomics workshops and even lectures on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In addition, several videos were communicated globally where ICL employees who were unfortunately previously injured in work accidents shared their personal experiences. These videos were communicated to emphasize the great importance and relevance of safety to each and every global employee.
ICL intends to continue this tradition of the Global Safety week in the future, as an important part of the company’s commitment to constantly raise awareness among its employees and maintain their health and safety.
