Social responsibility Health and safety We have a health and safety management system in place across all our Austrian plants and sites, which ensures compliance with the applicable legislation and international ISO 45001 standard. In order to continually improve our health and safety standards, we regularly assess our employees’ workspaces, workstations and work tasks, so that we can identify any potential risks or hazards at the earliest possible opportunity. These assessments are revised and updated following any change in working conditions and/or any workplace accident or near-miss. All actions taken to improve our health and safety standards follow the STOP principle. This means we first seek to eliminate the root cause of a hazard (substitution). Where this is not possible, our next priority is to introduce technical safety measures, followed by organisational measures. Only as a final step do we introduce personal protective measures for employees. At Blum, health and safety is considered a collective responsibility. Health and safety assessments are therefore conducted by our safety managers and internal company doctors, with input from management staff, employees and designated safety officers. All employees are expected to take personal responsibility for maintaining health and standards by reporting any failings and safety risks to their managers. Likewise, all workplace accidents and near-misses must be reported. In the event of an accident or near-miss, managers must document what happened in as much detail as possible and complete an accident analysis including details of the number of people affected and whether they required time off work. The responsible safety officer can also be called upon to help compile this information. The aim of the accident analysis is to determine the cause of accident, so that the findings can be used to prevent the same or similar accidents from happening in future. In the event of a serious accident – or any incident where the manager or safety manager deems it necessary – the responsible safety manager must also complete an extended accident analysis. Safety officers are employees with additional responsibilities around health and safety and accident prevention. They play an important role in our health and safety system and network because they work on the ground and are therefore able to identify problems and risks on-site and help devise appropriate solutions. The purpose of safety officers, the required numbers and their duties, rights and responsibilities are set out in the Austrian Health and Safety at Work Act (ASchG) and the Austrian ordinance governing safety officers (SVP-VO). At Blum, we require there to be at least one safety officer in post in every department where there are increased health and safety risks, e.g. production, workshops, warehouses and dispatch. We currently have 94 safety officers appointed across all our plants and sites. They are responsible for conducting biannual inspections of their departments and also attend an annual meeting of all safety officers held at each plant in order to share experiences and ensure everyone is up to date with the latest information. ➔ GRI 403-1, GRI 403-2, GRI 403-7 S Substitution (elimination of hazard’s root cause wherever possible) T Technical protective measures (safety devices and equipment) O Organisational protective measures (restricted access to hazardous zones, safety instructions) P Personal protective measures 75
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