Health and Safety Systems
The health and safety of our employees is a core value and our highest operating priority. We care for employees and want them to return home safely each and every day of their working lives.
Our goal is an injury-free workplace. Our current target is to reduce our recordable incident rate to less than 1—that is, less than one injury or illness requiring more than first-aid treatment per 100 employees per year.
The effectiveness of our safety management systems, as with our environmental and financial compliance systems, is a function of leadership and accountability.
Our Health and Safety Strategy Drives our Safety Performance
The companywide strategy, "Safe from the Start: Our Approach to Safety," defines five basic elements of the company's approach to managing safety:
- Have committed leadership
- Be employee-driven
- Do the basics well
- Focus on the greatest potential improvements
- Recognize and manage risk
Key companywide tools that support this approach include:
- Annual companywide performance objectives
- A standard process to report and investigate incidents
- A database to manage incident data
- An audit process to assess regulatory compliance and continuous improvement
- Online training available to all employees
- Robust communications
We do experience cases where, despite our commitment and efforts, our results do not meet expectations. In March 2007, Weyerhaeuser Company Limited received a preliminary determination from WorkSafeBC (British Columbia's workers' compensation system) setting a CAN$297,000 fine for safety violations contributing to the death of an employee at a lumber mill in New Westminster in 2004. This mill has since been sold and subsequently was closed. Weyerhaeuser has provided corrections and comments with respect to the facts and assumptions set out in the WorkSafeBC preliminary determination.
Incident Investigation and Reporting
Preventing injuries necessitates learning from safety incidents. Our incident investigation standard requires that all incidents be reported, recorded and investigated according to defined processes based on the type and severity of the incident. Causes must be identified and action taken to prevent recurrence.
Information Management System
An important part of promoting safety is collecting and analyzing data about our incidents and near misses. Our Safety and Health Information Management System lets us report incident data and the resulting investigation information, track the progress of corrective actions, analyze company trends and identify potential future risks in health and safety performance. Information is collected on:
- Work-related injury and illness
- Environmental incidents
- Near mishaps
- Property damage
- Vehicle incidents
Health and Safety Exchange
The Health and Safety Exchange is a primary way we assess and improve the health and safety management systems at Weyerhaeuser locations. This set of criteria enables visiting auditors or facility personnel themselves to assess a site's management and control of health and safety risks in 11 areas:
- Leadership in health and safety
- Employee-driven
- Work-site analysis
- Incident investigation
- Hazard prevention and control
- Inspections
- Industrial hygiene
- Integrated health management/occupational health
- Emergency preparedness
- Training
- Business focus activities
All North American operations are reviewed against these areas at least once every three years.
Record Keeping
Accurate reporting and record keeping are important to our safety management system. They provide a solid foundation for reporting and tracking incidents. They also enable us to analyze trends so we can implement effective safety processes and prevent injuries. We have reinforced our expectation for accurate record keeping, and we are working diligently to improve our accuracy through record keeping audits and training. Our 2006 goal was to achieve a higher accuracy rate than the industry average. In fact, our accuracy rate for 2006 record keeping (95 percent) exceeded the average level found by OSHA inspections at companies across the United States (90 percent).
