Eliminating Fatal Risks
Refer to the following sections for details on our key sustainability challenge of eliminating fatal risks:
Our Challenge
To fully implement and optimise the safety management standards we have developed, we need to ensure that all our employees and contractors understand, rigorously apply, and fully comply with these standards.
Our Drivers
Employees and contractors have a right to a safe work environment. Families and dependants also face having their lives devastated through the death or severe injury of a loved one.
To secure and maintain a licence to operate, BHP Billiton must be seen by host communities as a company that protects and cares for its people and one able to continue operating within increasingly stringent regulatory frameworks.
Our Approach
Across the organisation safety risks are managed through the risk-based HSEC Management Standards and other dedicated safety systems.
Our safety strategy is based on three principles:
- leadership effectiveness
- behaviours and awareness
- rigorous standards and systems for managing risks and ensuring full compliance.
These focus on our people and systems, with two key objectives:
- ensuring that our practices, procedures, conditions, equipment and behaviour contribute towards creating a workplace where it is possible to work without adverse impact on people, the environment or the community
- developing our people, including contractors, to make the right decisions as they go about their day-to-day work.
Read more: Safety>Our Approach.
Our 2006 Priorities
In 2006, the scope of this sustainability challenge was broadened to place greater emphasis on learning from significant incidents and contractor safety. As a result the priorities for the 2005/06 reporting year were:
- sharing and embedding the learnings from significant and near miss incidents
- ensuring that standards and procedures adopted by contractors are consistent with those of the Company
- fully implementing the Fatal Risk Control Protocols
- commencing reporting of the Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TIFR) - this reflects the belief that, as we become stronger in reducing fatalities and serious injuries, we are able to look at less serious injuries that still affect our impact and not just those requiring time away from the workplace or a change in duties.
Read more: Safety>Our Performance for a full description of safety performance in 2006.
Our 2006 Performance
Targets |
2005/06 Performance Against Target |
|
|---|---|---|
Zero fatalities |
 |
Three fatalities in controlled activities1 (FY05:3) |
Legal Compliance |
|
Seven fines greater than US$1,000. Total fines paid US$479,809 (FY05: US$20,836)3 |
Risk Management All sites to undertake annual self-assessments against the BHP Billiton HSEC Management Standards4 and have plans to achieve conformance with the Standards by 30 June 2008 |
 |
94 per cent of required self-assessments were completed at operating sites |
 |
An overall conformance of 3.9 out of 5 has been achieved, compared to our conformance target of greater than 4 (FY05: 3.9 out of 5) |
|
Risk registers to be in place and maintained at all sites5 and within BHP Billiton businesses and Corporate offices |
 |
Risk registers are in place at 99 per cent of required sites, businesses and Corporate offices |
Safety 50% reduction in Classified Injury Frequency Rate6 (excluding first aid treatments) at sites by 30 June 2007 |
 |
During the year our Classified Injury Frequency Rate (CIFR) increased from 3.9 to 4.8, resulting in an overall reduction to date of 28% against the 2001/02 baseline CIFR of 6.7 (FY05: 42% reduction) |
-
Performance change since last reporting period:
Overall performance against target:
Target exceeded or ahead of schedule 
Performance tracking steadily 
Target achieved (≥ 95%) or on track 
Performance has improved 
Target behind schedule 
Performance has declined Target not achieved
- Controlled activities are work related activities where BHP Billiton directly supervises and enforces HSEC standards.
- Fines reported may relate to incidents that occurred in previous years.
- Prosecutions included are those that have been determined during the year and resulted in fines. They may relate to incidents that occurred in previous years. The only exception is a safety fine, which was received in the 2005 reporting period but was not reported last year as it was being held in trust pending appeal. The fine became payable in the 2006 reporting period.
- Issue 3 of the BHP Billiton HSEC Management Standards was introduced in
September 2005.- Includes 59 sites in total, excludes exploration and development projects,
sites being divested, closed sites, and offices. Also excludes recent acquisitions e.g. WMC, which have two years to achieve compliance with target.- A classified injury is any workplace injury that has resulted in the person not returning to their unrestricted normal duties after the day on which the injury was received.
Read more: Targets Scorecard for a review of performance against all Company sustainability targets.
Our Goals
- Continued focus on contractor engagement - specifically ensuring that all contractors and suppliers are treated equally, have access to company information and adopt standards and procedures that are consistent with our standards
- Assist operations and business groups to achieve a high level of consistency in the application of the Company’s risk management policy, standards and techniques
- Reduce our Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate, which aims to improve the visibility of all workplace incidents by including the total number of medical cases, not just those requiring time away from the workplace or a change in duties
- Continued tracking and review of the implementation progress of the Fatal Risk Control Protocols
- Continued tracking and monitoring of near miss reports as a source of information enabling identification of issues requiring safety interventions
- Supporting sites in introducing site-based behavioural-based safety programs as a mechanism for achieving sustainable behavioural change in working safely
- Integration and rollout of the recently developed BHP Billiton leadership model across the organisation
- Maximise benefit, use and value from the recently established BHP Billiton Global Safety Network.
