Improving Prevention, Health & Safety

Veolia is well aware improving its employees’ health and safety at work benefits both company performance and employee well-being. The company has adopted Prevention, Health, and Safety as a major ongoing goal for its businesses, and in 2013, general management made a renewed commitment to these measures as a lever for change. The aim is to strengthen the initiative, support the efforts already underway and involve all employees at every level of the organization as well as outside stakeholders, in order to ensure their physical safety and mental well-being. More than just a strategy, Prevention, Health, and Safety is an integral part of all the company’s fundamental activities and processes.

Preventing Occupational Risk

Veolia has implemented a structured initiative led by senior management that relies on the visible involvement of the entire management chain and a continuous improvement system that enables it to fulfill its commitments, achieve its stated goals, and uphold the principles included in its commitment to Prevention, Health, and Safety. On July 1, 2013, Veolia signed the Seoul Declaration of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva, recognizing the fundamental human right to a safe and healthy workplace. As part of its commitments, Veolia promotes the continuous improvement approach to Prevention, Health, and Safety advocated by the declaration, trains stakeholders, and fosters employee-employer dialogue on the issue. In addition, innovative on-site health and safety practices have also been identified within the company. Two of these practices have been recognized by Social Innovation Awards, underscoring how safety permeates every aspect of Veolia’s employees relations policy.

High-Risk Management Standards

To improve the management of hazardous situations, 10 high-risk management standards have been developed based on internal and external best practices.

Each standard is associated with one or more life-saving rules. They define the last barrier to be observed in all circumstances to avoid a severe accident. These high-risk management standards contain the minimum requirements that must always be applied whenever a high-risk activity takes place. They cannot cover all high-risk activities, but they are representative of experience from Veolia's operations.