Health and Safety

Approach

Safety

Occupational safety management system

Elopak commits to proactively ensuring a safe workplace by including safety in our daily processes and activities. Safety is a core value in Elopak. In fulfilling our commitment to protect our assets – people and property – Elopak provides and maintains a safe working environment in accordance with local legal requirements, company and industry standards, and our Corporate Safety Policy. Our production units are either certified to, or perform self-assessments according to ISO 45001.

In Elopak, we are committed to working with continuous improvement according to our Elovation program (Elovation is our framework for continuous improvement, implemented globally with local managers at all production sites). Continuous improvement also means improving processes and standards and maintaining equipment to achieve zero accidents and injuries. To meet this commitment, we strive to continuously and systematically improve our workplace, ways of working, and employees’ training and skills. To identify, monitor, and control safety performance, Elopak sets and manages safety targets.

Safety at work is a management responsibility, ranking equally with the responsibility for Elopak’s commercial activities. However, every Elopak employee has an individual and collective responsibility for safety at work. Each production plant and unit has its own Safety Officer to support our safety programs and monitor and ensure compliance.

The following mechanisms are in place to drive safety performance:

1. Management processes

Elopak performs an annual internal safety audit evaluation of compliance and achievements, including:

• Policy, strategy, targets
• Common focus items
• Safety standard

There are monthly reports of activities, including leading and lagging indicators, to the Board of Directors, Global Leadership Team, and the organization as applicable. All recordable injuries are reported to top management for review, while relevant Workers Councils or similar groups review the safety culture and performance.

2. Leading indicators to drive safety performance include:

• Quarterly safety network alignment across Elopak
• Quarterly safety plan review by Corporate Safety
• Safety Walks performed by all levels of management
• Safety observations

3. Hazard identification, risk assessment, and incident investigation

To achieve our target of zero injuries, we need a strong safety culture and structured methods of identifying and managing hazards and risks. For the latter, we have several tools in use. All employees perform hazard identification and act on and report relevant hazards. Such reports are measured as a leading indicator.

We have structured programs for risk assessments of physical areas, machines, and tasks. For non-routine work, we use Last-Minute Risk Assessment to identify and manage risks before starting any activity. Our local Safety Officers work together with their teams to make sure the relevant programs are followed and that the desired effects are achieved. Findings are managed by a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle to ensure that we gain the right learnings and take the correct actions.

Reporting is currently arranged by local systems. Elopak has invested in a common reporting tool to make this more efficient and transparent. Although the expectation that all employees should act when aware of dangerous situations is anchored in our governing documents such as the Code of Conduct and Safety Policy, we also accept anonymous reports. Safety is the number one priority in Elopak, and we expect everyone to take any required action to remain safe at work. Interfering with production to remain safe is entirely acceptable if that is what it takes to work safely.

We still experience safety incidents in Elopak, and when they happen, there are dedicated processes defined to manage them. Immediate countermeasures are arranged locally. Any fatality or recordable injury is reported to the corporate organization. The incident is reviewed by the relevant Business Area Vice President, the responsible manager(s), and the local Safety Officer. This review is initiated by the Corporate Safety Director and the Corporate Senior Manager for safety. Such reviews aim to align on what has happened and the initial actions. Often a set of additional actions is agreed to ensure that the same incident will not happen again. A Safety Alert is defined with key learnings and actions to inform the rest of the organization. Although such incidents are undesirable, we realize that they have significant value for driving safety culture through dialogue and learning.

Elopak’s continued drive to improve safety in operational areas has resulted in a declining trend over the last years. Although several production sites have already reached the long-term target of zero recordable injuries, we still have sites working towards desired results.

Absence due to sickness has increased from 3.9% in 2020 to 4.0% in 2021, which is above our target of 3%. The main reason is sick leave and absence due to quarantine regulations related to the Covid-19 pandemic, both in 2020 and 2021.

More results and details on our performance can be found here.

Moving forward

A long-term plan and supportive strategy have been rolled out at Group level, providing a framework for safety plans. Therefore, to make Elopak an even safer workplace, key focus items and tailored initiatives have been implemented in all local safety plans. Technical safety remains on the agenda, together with several previous focus areas, but developing a safety culture is increasingly important. A program has been initiated to enable leaders to better interact with the organization, understand underlying factors, and make sure safety issues are understood. This program will be brought further into local organizations in 2022.

Occupational health services

Corrective actions focusing on health and safety activities for managing a healthy and proper business environment are carried out in cooperation between the HR, HSE, relevant line managers, and local health service providers. Employees are invited to perform alternative tasks or work part-time as part of a program to get back to work earlier.

Annual health checks, especially for exposed groups like operators in the plants and Field Service Engineers, are normally carried out frequently (yearly) but have been challenging to uphold during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Elopak has also improved the information to employees on business travel and in need of local health assistance close to where they are staying – reflecting our group-wide travel insurance program (“Duty of Care”), which includes travel assistance service worldwide 24/7.