Safe operations

Safety is a basic condition of working at Yara - and a commitment that stretches beyond our immediate operations. It also includes contractors working at our facilities and extends to the communities in which we operate.

Yara’s efforts to keep improving its safety performance have received recognition, and the track record remains strong. When benchmarked against other chemical and fertilizer companies, our performance places us among the leaders in industrial safety, with injury rates well below those of comparable members of the European Fertilizer Manufacturers Association (EFMA) or the European Industrial Gases Association (EIGA).

Despite a strong track record, efforts continue to reach our zero accident policy. We believe that the key to delivering good safety results involves

1. strict adherence to our technical and operational standards and procedures,

2. strong management commitment and walking the talk by managers at all levels, and

3. engaging everyone in safety through behavior-based safety processes and learning from accidents and near-misses.

Yara’s employees are regularly trained in the conduct of safe operations and response to emergencies, and reporting accidents and near misses is required for everyone at Yara. Contractors are subject to the same scrutiny as employees, and managers carry out regular safety walks around sites to ensure that standards remain high. Lessons learned from accidents and incidents are shared between all plants in the Yara family.

Strong emphasis is placed on Yara’s Behavior Based Safety (BBS) program run and managed by the operators at the plants. It aims to reduce risk on the factory floor through observation and feedback at peer group level. BBS identifies critical behavior from past incident reports, observes employees and contractors at work, provides immediate feedback on what works well and evaluates data collected from the observations. Communication and openness are key to the program’s success and essential ingredients in Yara’s efforts to ensure worker safety.

On a broader scale, we work to prevent and prepare for emergencies that could pose potential risks to workers as well as our surroundings. This also involves cooperating with local authorities to establish and improve their emergency preparedness. Following the principles of product stewardship, we ensure that proper care is taken along the entire value chain to promote safety for all.