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Health and Safety

85%
Percentage of employees who agree we always put safety first — no compromise
(2011 Engagement Survey)

Our commitment to employee and contractor safety is our highest company value, and leadership and employee involvement has been the foundation of our success in improving performance over the last decade. From our senior leadership to our front-line supervisors, visible, consistent commitment to safety has made a significant impact. Our leaders hold themselves and others accountable for demonstrating caring, safe behaviors and correcting hazardous situations. Our employees are fully engaged and have taken on increased responsibility and accountability in safety. Our journey to an injury-free Weyerhaeuser is well under way.

HEALTH AND SAFETY STRATEGY

Our companywide strategy, "Safe from the Start: Our Journey to Injury-Free," defines five basic elements of the company's approach to managing safety:

  • Demonstrate caring 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

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SAFETY LEADERSHIP

Watch our president and CEO talk about our journey to injury-free and focus areas for 2012:

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SAFETY PERFORMANCE

One measure we use to monitor our safety performance is the recordable incident rate. We achieved our goal of a less-than-one RIR, and have demonstrated this performance is sustainable. In fact, in 2011, 75 percent of our facilities operated injury-free. Our results show that we are placing the correct level of attention on employee and contractor safety and have the right processes, training, tools, communications, activities and behaviors in place.

Key Safety Performance Metrics

Safety incidents and fatalities1
  2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
United States and Canada  
Employee RIR2 1.17 0.98 0.85 0.86 0.96
Contractor RIR3 1.50 1.08 1.06 1.22 1.05
Days-away case rate (employees) 0.30 0.41 0.34 0.33 0.32
Days-away rate (employees) 12.96 19.61 17.54 12.21 12.50
 
Fatalities worldwide  
Employees 0 1 0 1 0
Contractors 4 1 0 1 2
  1. Data reflects performance of our current portfolio of operations. In March 2007, our fine paper business and related assets were combined with Domtar Inc. to create a new fine paper company, Domtar Corporation. In August 2008, we sold our containerboard, packaging and recycling business to International Paper. Operations involved in those transactions or closed have been removed from historical data.
  2. Employee data includes supervised contractors.
  3. Contractor RIR data does not include contractors from our real estate subsidiaries.

Fatalities

It is not acceptable to Weyerhaeuser that any person lose his or her life while working for us. Regrettably, we experienced fatalities recently.

On Jan. 19, 2011, a contract employee died when a loader he was moving across a bridge overturned into a creek.

On Oct. 17, 2011, a contract employee died after falling 45 feet into a heat exchange vessel.

On May 9, 2012, a contract employee died after being struck by an upending log as he was setting a choker.

On June 15, 2012, a contract employee died after being struck by an object while a turn of logs was being yarded over steep and rocky ground.

These incidents were reviewed by the senior management team and the board of directors after thorough investigations. Lessons learned from the incidents were communicated to contractors (as appropriate) and all employees across the company, and recommendations were implemented.

Compliance

We conduct health and safety regulatory compliance audits in all of our manufacturing businesses to ensure compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements and company standards.

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INCIDENT INVESTIGATION AND REPORTING

To prevent injury, a company must learn from its safety incidents and near misses. 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.

Our Safety and Health Information Management System enables us to report incident data and the resulting investigation information, track the progress of corrective actions, analyze company trends and identify potential risks in health and safety. We collect and analyze information on:

  • Work-related injury and illness
  • Environmental incidents
  • Near mishaps
  • Hazard observations
  • Property damage
  • Vehicle incidents
  • Process loss
  • Product damage

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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. All North American operations are reviewed against the following criteria (or a subset) annually.

  • Leadership in health and safety
  • Employee-driven
  • Work-site analysis
  • Incident investigation
  • Hazard prevention and control
  • Inspections
  • Industrial hygiene
  • Health management/occupational health
  • Emergency preparedness
  • Training
  • Business focus activities

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RECORDKEEPING

Accurate reporting and recordkeeping provide a solid foundation for tracking and analyzing incident trends so we can implement effective safety processes and prevent injuries. We expect accurate recordkeeping, and we are working diligently to improve our accuracy through recordkeeping audits and training. Our recordkeeping accuracy rate for 2011 was 97 percent, above our goal (95 percent) and above the average level found by OSHA inspections at companies across the United States (90 percent).

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HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICY

It is Weyerhaeuser's core policy and highest priority to protect the health and well-being of all employees through the prevention of injury and illness at work. This commitment is based on caring for our employees.

Expectations

Business activities will be conducted to:

  • Focus on preventing incidents to achieve a workplace that is free from work-related injury and illness and to enable employees to complete each workday and their work life in good health
  • Achieve full compliance with all applicable legal requirements and company standards
  • Identify and respond to any public health impacts of our operations and the use of our products and services
  • Treat injured employees with dignity and respect and provide the best medical treatment for workplace injury and illness
  • Effectively manage illness and injury and reduce associated costs
  • Maintain a workplace free of the effects of alcohol and other drugs of abuse

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   Sustainability in Action
Safety goes viral

Locals in the Pacific Northwest call them "rain on snow" events — when heavy rains rapidly melt snow packs. Rivers rise, streams wash out roads, and hillsides sometimes slide over highways. Such an event took place on Nov. 22, 2011, but timely communication and attention to safety may have saved lives for a coastal Oregon harvesting crew.

Jason Hinkle, slope stability geologist for Weyerhaeuser's Western Timberlands research and development team, routinely checks the National Weather Service website, as do others in the Timberlands organization.

"Paying attention to the weather and what's going on in the woods is part of what I do," he says. "That requires an understanding of landslide hazards."

Early that week in November, the service issued a flood watch that included a debris-flow warning. Using email, Hinkle alerted both Weyerhaeuser colleagues and others he knew, including former co-workers at the Oregon Department of Forestry. His email went viral, finding its way to another company, Longview Timber, and managers of its Coastal Tree Farm. They took heed and instructed a logging contractor, Teevin Brothers, to move a crew out of a steep, snow-covered draw during the stormy weather.

The precaution paid off. After two days of heavy rains on two feet of snow, a debris flow swept through the area the crew had been working. Longview Timber managers called it a near miss in which lives may have been saved. As grateful messages went back through the email chain, it became clear the warning originated from a Weyerhaeuser employee.

"Too often, we hear about things that went wrong and the injuries that happened," says Brian Fransen, Environmental Forestry unit manager and Hinkle's supervisor. "By taking the time to share our safety concerns with friends and co-workers, we can have a significant influence on the safety of others."

"I've sent similar emails probably dozens of times over the last dozen years," added Hinkle. "This just happened to be the one time when it came back around. It's an example of how sharing information — and acting on it — can have a positive effect."

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Last updated June 20, 2012