Health & Safety Performance
Our occupational health and safety initiatives aim to reduce the number of work-related injuries and illnesses as well as improving the wellbeing of our people.
Our objectives
Reduce Injury and Illness Rate (per 200,000 hours worked) to 0.5 by 2008 and achieve leading health and safety record in industry sector.
Our approach
The health and safety of our employees is vital to our business. Every employee must live up to our Health, Safety and Environment policy. Line managers are responsible for ensuring the policy is implemented.
| Health and safety1 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recordable injury and illness rate (IIR) target 0.502 | 0.50 | 0.49 | 0.43 |
| Occupational health cases2 |
0.03 | 0.05 | 0.04 |
| First aid cases | 421 | 402 | 476 |
- Refers to cases reported between 1.10.07 to 30.09.08
- According to US OSHA definitions for injuries and illness (per 200,000 hours)
| Occupational injury and ilness cases in 2008 | ||||||||||||
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injury rate
illness rate| Recordable injuries by type | ||||||||||||
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Injury and Illness Rate
Syngenta follows the US government OSHA standards of
health and safety performance reporting to determine our Injury and Illness
Rate (IIR). This year our IIR was 0.50, meeting our target to reduce and
maintain the Injury and Illness Rate (per 200,000 hours worked) to 0.5
by 2008.
In 2008, 66 percent of our sites had no recordable injury or illness. There were a total of 141 reported injuries, resulting in 861 lost days. The most common were cuts, abrasions, bruises, strains and sprains.
There were eight reported cases of recordable occupational illness, compared with 13 in 2007. Syngenta has a program in place to assess the risks posed by occupational stress and take action to reduce them. In 2008, 16 cases of work-related stress were recorded, compared with 21 in 2007.
Fatality
We deeply regret that a product promoter in Indonesia lost his life in
a motor vehicle accident in 2008. Following the incident, Syngenta carried
out an audit to assess our driving safety program in the country. The
auditor found that the vast majority of vehicles and equipment provided
to employees met Syngenta requirements but recommended introducing a safer
tubeless tire for motorcycles, improving training on driving safety and
reviewing the safe driving policy.
As a result of this incident, we have also reviewed and increased driving safety initiatives in other regions. See more on driving safety below.
