Society
Safety management
Operational health and safety
The safety and health of our staff are of the utmost importance. To guarantee protection in the workplace and safety at our sites and their environments, high standards apply for the CHT Group.
- Within the framework of the Integrated Management System, we are establishing occupational health and safety management in the companies worldwide and are preparing for certification according ISO 45001 in a programme. The CHT companies in Pakistan, Turkey and Germany were successfully certified.
- All employees are familiar with the instructions informing them of what to do in cases of emergency. Regular training and exercises are carried out. The present legal provisions determine the content of these instructions reflecting the identified risks at the workplaces.
- We provide appropriate working clothes and protective equipment to all employees worldwide.
- At all sites trained specialists such as operational safety specialists and safety officers ensure that the operational safety requirements are implemented.
- Safety-relevant events are systematically registered and evaluated to improve the working conditions and preventive measures being put in place.
- Suppliers and service providers are obliged in writing to comply with the safety regulations applicable in the respective plants before the contract is awarded; compliance with these regulations is monitored during the execution of the contract. Our visitors may only move around our company premises together with employees of the CHT Group who are familiar with the safety precautions at the respective sites.
Requested prevention and information
In 2020, the accident rate within the Group of companies was 1.6%, a increase of almost 60% compared to the previous year (1%). No continuing pattern of accident causes could be discerned in the tracing of occupational accidents. All accidents at work with an absence of at least one day are included. Most of the injuries were not typical for the chemical industry, but were not specific to the industry, such as bruises, sprains, cuts, etc. In the 2020 reporting period, there were no fatalities due to operational reasons. The following graphs show the work-related accidents of CHT staff by region and rate (subject to reporting according to the OSHA regulations (RIR)*:
Occupational accidents by region and rate (reportable under OSHA regulations (RIR)*
| Europe | 15 | 52% |
| Americas | 12 | 41% |
| Africa | 2 | 7% |
| Australia | 0 | 0% |
| Asia | 0 | 0% |
*Calculated using OSHA’s Recordable Incident Rate (RIR) method = (number of recorded accidents x 200,000/number of hours actually worked). The hours worked of 3,617,600 is calculated by multiplying 1,800 hours worked per year per employee by CHT’s 2,261 FTEs during the 2020 reporting period.
On the base of this development we are going to increase our international measurements for operational health and safety and further promote our staff’s training in this field. The long-term goal of the CHT Group is to continue to reduce the number of accidents in the workplace and to halve absences from work worldwide by 2025.
Plant safety
CHT products are manufactured in modern chemical plants which are state-of-the-art in terms of safety and control. When manufacturing our products, we respect the pre-requisite for quality, the environmental protection, operational health and safety as well as the energetically favorable use of our plants. To meet these requirements we have an integrated management system certified according to the standards ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 50001 and OHSAS 18001 (CHT Germany GmbH). By 2025 we aim to have all manufacturing sites certified according to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The new certifications in the Group planned for 2020 were achieved.
- All plants and processes are continually optimized and technologically advanced worldwide.
- Regular servicing and preventive maintenance guarantee safe operation and conformity with the applicable legal regulations and approvals.
- Maintenance and repair work are only carried out by trained specialists.
- All employees are continuously trained depending on their workplace. At the German sites apprenticeships and further education complies with the pre-requisites of the professional associations which are supplemented by an HR development plan.
- Training on plant operation and instructions for correct safety and environmental conduct are regularly carried out.
- As a general conclusion for all sites we can say that in 2020 the safe operation of the plants according to group-internal requirements and local regulations was guaranteed. All incidents were handled in line with defined reporting systems and procedures including the necessary measurements.
In case of incidents in plant safety, appropriate corrective actions were initiated immediately. This showed that the procedures for alert and emergency response and the cooperation with authorities and public institutions as well as the fire departments function reliably.