Policy statement
Elementis conducts its business worldwide with the highest concern for the health and safety of its employees, contractors, customers, neighbours and the general public and for the environment in which it operates.

Elementis seeks to identify and eliminate occupational health hazards, is committed to providing a safe workplace for all its employees and strives for zero injuries.

Elementis aspires to best in class performance in all aspects of environmental management. It views compliance with all applicable legal requirements and legal codes of practice as its minimum standard and works proactively to reduce emissions and waste from its products and processes.

Elementis supports the chemical industry's Responsible Care programme and applies these principles in its worldwide operations. Elementis recognises the importance of communications with all interested parties and is committed to informing its employees, contractors, customers, neighbours and the general public promptly of any significant hazards that arise from its operations.

The Board and senior management of Elementis are committed to this policy and continually monitor performance to ensure its implementation.

Health, safety and environment leadership
Geoff Gaywood, Chief Executive, has Board level responsibility for health, safety and environmental (HSE) issues. Details of any lost time accidents and non-compliance with environmental consents are reported to the Board at each meeting. HSE performance is reviewed regularly by the management team and actions agreed to address any areas of under performance. HSE policy and corrective actions are implemented at operational level by the managing director of each business. Two corporate HSE managers provide an additional link between the management team and the businesses, providing expert advice on the implementation of policy and measuring performance.

Safety and environmental performance
Elementis achieved a further reduction in lost time accidents, although the size of the decrease was disappointing. The frequency rate for lost time accidents greater than three days per 100,000 hours worked decreased by just over 7 per cent year on year. This rate is 21 per cent better than the Chemical Industries Association member rate for 2001.

The rate for all recordable injuries and illnesses using the US Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OSHA) definitions was 3.4 per 200,000 hours worked compared with 4.3 in 2001.

A determined effort to improve the safety rate further is under way through an increased focus on minor accidents and near misses, and behavioural safety programmes. Minor accidents and near misses are targeted using the Elementis incident investigation reporting system, implemented in 2001. The investigations establish the root cause of minor incidents and enable effective corrective actions to be taken to reduce the probability of more serious accidents. A behavioural safety programme that relies on the greater personal involvement of employees in identifying potentially unsafe behaviour has been successfully used at the Elementis Chromium facility at Eaglescliffe, UK, since 1997. During 2002, a similar process was introduced to all Elementis Specialties plants in the US and UK and will be rolled out to the Specialties head office and European locations in the first quarter of 2003.

Using the strict Elementis definition of environmental incidents, environmental performance improved significantly; eight incidents occurred during 2002 compared with 28 in 2001. The improvement is due to the increased focus given to environmental performance at all levels of the business during the year and the successful application of the incident investigation reporting system to environmental incidents.

HSE targets
The longer term goal for HSE performance is to be in the top quartile of similar sized American chemical companies.

Goals for 2003
Safety
As the number of lost time accidents reduces, the focus now moves to reducing more minor accidents and incidents. A measure of this will be to reduce recordable incidents (using the OSHA definitions) to 2.4 per 200,000 employee hours during 2003.

Environmental performance
Improved environmental performance will target zero incidents having a significant impact on the environment.

Sustainable development
Elementis aspires to achieve sustainable development by continual improvement of its performance in product stewardship and environmental management, employment and employee welfare practices, and relations with the communities in which it operates and its other stakeholders. A sustainable development strategy, based on the values of employees and management and the standards set by other leading companies in the chemical industry is in development.