Safety management

Yara has a well-established management system to live up to its ambitions and corporate responsibilities concerning health, environmental and safety (HES) issues. Responsibility for these issues stretches from the boardroom to the factory floor.

HES is a line responsibility, from the top of the company on down. Yara’s HESQ & Product Stewardship Team supports the line in setting goals and standards, and carries out internal audits to ensure that the corporate policies are fulfilled. This is reviewed regularly by the management and Yara’s Safety Committee, and the Board of Directors oversees decisions and performance.

Within this framework, Yara’s plants and units maintain close control of their own health, environmental and safety performance, and enable local employee involvement and compliance with national legislation as well as adherence to Yara’s high technical and operational requirements.

Yara has issued a clear set of safety management principles for production sites. These principles include annual safety targets and action plans, job risk evaluation, rules for protective equipment and emergency response plans. Accidents and near misses must be reported and investigated and corrections implemented.

Yara’s management and the European Works Council (EWC) also have agreed on a number of health and safety principles underlining the common target of zero accidents. The agreement emphasizes that safety is the responsibility of every employee, at every level of the company, and that safety rules are to be considered minimum requirements.

All Yara production sites are operated under strict national environmental standards and have established environmental management systems developed in cooperation with industry associations and regulatory authorities based on the ISO 14001 standard.

Internal performance data is routinely checked and reported to regulatory authorities. Data is also collected externally by AD Fiduciaire of Switzerland as part of Yara’s participation in the annual international benchmarking of emissions from fertilizer plants.

Yara has a global frame agreement on certification with Det Norske Veritas (DNV). This covers the certification of ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment) and OHSAS 18001 (safety). Yara’s product stewardship performance is audited by SGS and approved by the European Fertilizer Manufacturers Association.