What concrete resources does Veolia provide on a daily basis to implement the group's accident prevention, health and safety policy within operational entities?

OUR ANSWER

The most essential thing is Veolia’s health and safety approach. A structured and structuring framework for each person's daily actions. 

1. Governance at the highest level Proof of the imponderable nature of safety at Veolia is our CEO, who is the internal safety sponsor. The approach is driven and tracked at the highest governance level. 
2. A health and safety management system common to all entities worldwide. It defines risk analysis, the organisation, roles and responsibilities, procedures, relationships with stakeholders, training, analysis and monitoring of performance indicators. Applied in all the Group's entities, sites and departments all over the world, this policy ensures that one single “safety culture” shared by all enables us to move closer to achieving our collective goal of zero accidents. 
3. Common safety rules, e.g. how can we be sure that an intervention on an electrical installation complies with the rules of the trade. Each employee must know these rules and sign them. 
4. Ten non-negotiable safety standards common to the entire Group: these are internal procedures for 10 major risks specific to our businesses, such as working with high pressure, at heights, in confined spaces or when performing lifting operations. 

Training courses are another essential element available to employees. In 2018, 44% of courses were health and safety courses, 60% of the 170,000 employees were trained in safety procedures and on average safety has been the subject of 11 hours of training per employee this year. 

In addition to the individual and collective protective equipment on each site, numerous tools and resources place safety as a priority concern: "Safety chats" are daily occurrences. They take place on all sites before taking up the shift and are an opportunity to share and remind everyone of safety rules. The sites are covered with posters and cards reminding employees of the "Do's" and "Don'ts". An effective and simple procedure to report incidents, near-accidents and accidents, is also an important part of the system.  

Proof of employee involvement can be seen with the increase in the number of near-accidents reported in 2018, up to 154,000. This involvement can also be seen in our results. In 2018, the industrial accident frequency rate fell by 11% and the severity rate by 14.5%. These are encouraging results and motivate us to continue our efforts towards the zero accident goal.