Employee health and safety

This is a particularly important issue for CCE because many employees work in manufacturing sites with equipment and vehicles that have an inherent safety risk. For that reason, this section focuses predominantly on CCE.

Managing health and safety

Accidents are usually preventable - so we are committed to promoting and rewarding safe behaviour, as well as educating all of our employees in safety procedures.

We work hard to continually improve our performance on safety by:

• Promoting an environment in which doing things safely is our priority
• Constantly monitoring our health and safety performance to ensure continuous improvement
• Working to continually identify hazards and risks in the workplace so we can eliminate or reduce them as far as possible

All of CCE's manufacturing and distribution sites have health and safety employee representatives. Alongside management representation, they sit on formal committees - helping to monitor and advise on occupational health and safety programmes. Every employee in our site operations (accounting for more than 50% of CCE's total workforce) is represented in this way.

Assessing safety risks

We have a safety risk assessment tool for our production facilities. In 2006, we began analysing the job safety of each position in the organisation. Initially we focused on roles that involved the greatest risk. These have now all been completed and will guide us in reducing the risks associated with each role.

Training employees on health and safety Issues

All new recruits are trained thoroughly in our health and safety policies. Every employee has access to our policies through our intranet or through printed copies displayed throughout our sites.

Monitoring performance

Health and safety performance is one of our Key Business Indicators. We review performance at both site and corporate level. The CCE safety manager presents the results to the senior management team twice a year.

All our manufacturing and distribution sites:

• Meet CCE's stringent internal Total Quality Management System (TQMS) standards
• Have been certificated to the OHSAS 18001 standard for Occupational Health & Safety
• Have written codes of practice, procedures and review processes to ensure compliance with company policies and regulatory requirements
• Have comprehensive emergency response procedures.
• The safety component of TCCQS has been externally benchmarked against OHSAS 18000.

Read more about CCE's TQMS standards and The Coca-Cola Company's TCCQS in product quality.

CCE performance

• In 2008, the regions had 17 lost-time accidents & their Reportable Injury Rate (RIR) was 0.87.
• Our manufacturing & distribution sites had 18 lost time accidents, and an RIR of 0.55
• The company overall had 40 lost time accidents, a reduction of 39% versus 2007, and an RIR of 0.61
• There were no fatalities at our sites in 2008.

We are proud of this good record and of the many awards we have received.

In 2008 alone we received 9 awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA):

• Four sites received RoSPA Gold Awards
• Five sites received RoSPA Gold Medal Awards
• Our East Kilbride site won a Gold Medal and Sector Award
• Our Edmonton site was also awarded a gold medal.

Lost Time Accidents per 100 employees:

• Reportable Injury Rate = 0.61 (2008 data - CCE only)

CCGB performance

Health and safety is a high priority for CCGB. We brief all new employees about our health and safety policy when they join.

During 2009 CCGB will be rolling out a complete programme on work area health and safety tips and techniques. This includes posture and ergonomics and working practices, such as taking regular breaks. We will also fulfil our bi-annual display screen equipment (DSE) assessments.