The health and safety of our employees and of others affected by our activities is of the utmost importance to us.

Health and safety
It is our policy to ensure that, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of our employees and of third parties, such as contractors and visitors, is not put at risk by our actions. Clear leadership from Chief Executive Geoff Gaywood and the Management Team has made safety a key priority for Elementis.

A number of programmes have been initiated since 2001 to ensure we achieve continual improvement in our health and safety activities. These include:

• a comprehensive incident and 'near miss' reporting and investigation system

• formal safety management systems

• adoption of corporate policies for life critical procedures such as working at heights, hot work, and fork truck operation

• a focus on promoting safe behaviour through behavioural safety programmes

• safety audits and follow up to points arising from those audits.

As a result of these initiatives, the frequency of more serious injuries has reduced and our emphasis has moved to reducing the number of lesser incidents, including near misses.

An improving trend in lost time accidents
A key measure of safety performance is the number of lost time accidents (LTAs). LTAs are defined in the UK as 'injuries resulting in greater than three days lost (not including the day of injury)'. The chart below shows how the frequency of LTAs has reduced in recent years.

Since 2000, our LTA rate has reduced by 51 per cent to 0.28 per 100,000 hours worked. This appears to have reached a plateau but nevertheless compares favourably with the UK CIA1 average of 0.31. A further, sustained reduction may take some time. However, we assume that every LTA has roots in incidents that happen more frequently without serious consequences. Eliminating the causes of minor incidents should therefore reduce the probability of one or more of those escalating into a more major incident.

An improvement in recordable incidents
Following our successful improvement in the number of LTAs, we have adopted on a global basis the US OSHA2 definition of recordable injuries and illnesses. This more detailed measure of underlying safety performance includes all incidents that require more than first aid treatment. Our recordable incident rate in 2003 has improved significantly to 2.45 per 200,000 hours worked, down from 3.35 in 2002. The ACC3 member rate for similar sized US companies in 2002 was 1.64.

The chart above illustrates how our performance has improved since 1999. In addition, the chart shows the target rate required to be in the top 25 per cent of similar sized chemical companies for recordable incidents and the Elementis target for 2004.

1 Chemical Industries Association
2 Occupational Health & Safety Administration
3 American Chemistry Council

Social responsibility continues on the next page >
[Page 1 of 3]