ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment, ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Health and Safety
Health and safety is a primary focus for the mining and metals industry, but we are still short of our goal of zero harm.
Our work in this area aims to achieve breakthrough progress on eliminating harm; exploring the root causes of why harm continues to occur and ways to drive this down to zero. We will also continue our work on reducing diesel particulate emissions from mining vehicles as part of our Innovation for Cleaner Safer Vehicles (ICSV) initiative.
Issue at a Glance
- ‘Health’ and ‘safety’ are often used together, as though they are a single concept, but great care needs to be taken to address their separate needs. Risks to safety are immediate and happen in the workplace, while health risks are often long-term and may not manifest for many years.
- Mining presents various hazards that can be of significant consequence, but through effective risk management strategies, neither safety incidents nor the onset of occupational diseases should happen. Safe working conditions are a fundamental human right at the heart of every responsible mining company, and ICMM members have an unwavering commitment to the health and safety of workers. They are working unceasingly to eliminate fatalities and prevent injuries. This goal has galvanised massive changes in operations that led to a dramatic decline in fatalities over the last few decades. However, we have still not achieved our goal of zero harm.
- Many mining companies have radically improved their health and safety performance in recent years, but material unwanted events continue. These are incidents that can lead to debilitating injuries, fatalities or even catastrophic events that affect wider communities and the environment. Investigations, typically show that controls for known risks were not effectively implemented. Adopting a critical control management approach is an effective way of focusing risk management on those systems that are most critical.
- Sharing lessons from failure is vital to improving health and safety, but it's not enough. Working together, we will hunt for the next step change to go beyond the elimination of harm to people and the environment. In support of this, ICMM actively collates and publishes company members’ safety data with the aim of encouraging information and knowledge-sharing among members, and catalysing learning across the industry.
Our priorities
Strengthen Our Leadership Position Beyond Guidance
ICMM members have an unwavering commitment to the health and safety of their workers and work unceasingly for the elimination of fatalities and preventable injuries. Despite this, zero harm is still an unachieved goal. We recognise that we have a greater role to play and are looking to expand on our traditional role of helping knowledge sharing and lessons learned by exploring innovative approaches to health and safety controls with technology providers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and academic institutions. We will also explore innovations related to human performance.
Promoting Operational and Technical Innovations
New technologies are transforming the mining and metals industry, making it cleaner and safer. ICMM’s Innovation for Cleaner, Safer Vehicles (ICSV) initiative brings together ICMM members and some of the world’s largest OEMs, in a non-competitive space, to accelerate the development of a new generation of mining vehicles that will minimise the operational impact of diesel exhaust and make vehicle collision avoidance technology available to mining companies by 2025. To this end, we are supporting companies in solving industry level issues and pursuing operational and technical innovations.
Align on New and More Balanced Collective Metrics
The mining and metals industry is seen as transforming progress by taking collective action on health and safety, resulting in continued and significant reductions in fatalities and serious injury and disease outcomes. Monitoring and reporting on occupational health and safety indicators plays an important part in driving performance improvement. We are working with members to agree on appropriate occupational health performance data collection and reporting parameters for member companies, based on leading performance indicators (including high potential incidents (HPIs), fatalities, serious incidents and other indicators). We are also working to evolve the annual ICMM safety report to take account of these updates.
Latest Updates on Health and Safety
Related Resources
An Approach to Contractor Engagement
Encourages a move from ‘service providers’ to a ‘delivery partner’ model for contractor management.
Considerations for the Adoption of Real-Time Particulate Monitoring
Provides a high-level overview of the considerations for the adoption of real-time particulate monitoring (RTPM) in the mining and metals industry.
Safety Performance: Benchmarking Progress of ICMM Company Members in 2021
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment, ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Health and Safety Performance Indicators: Guidance
Lays out the recommended definitions and reporting boundaries for lagging health and safety used in ICMM’s safety performance reports.
Safety Performance: Benchmarking Progress of ICMM Company Members in 2020
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Safety Data: Benchmarking Progress of ICMM Company Members in 2019
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Fatality Prevention: Eight Lessons Learned
No fatality is acceptable. This document articulates the collective discussions that have taken place on why the industry continues to have fatalities.
Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members in 2018
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members (2017)
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members (2016)
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Good Practice Guidance on Occupational Health Risk Assessment
Provides a practical tool to assist companies in protecting the health and wellbeing of their workforce via the implementation of occupational health risk assessments (HRAs).
Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members (2015)
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Critical Control Management: Good Practice Guide
Provides advice on how to identify and manage critical controls that can either prevent a serious incident from occurring or minimise the consequences if a serious incident were to occur.
Critical Control Management: Implementation Guide
Guidance on how to implement the 'Critical Control Management: Good Practice Guide' covering potential benefits and obstacles.
Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members (2014)
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members (2012-2013)
ICMM is committed to strengthening health and safety performance to reduce operational fatalities to zero. As part of this commitment ICMM produces an annual safety data report.
Community Health Programs in the Mining and Metals Industry
Captures a snapshot of practice in the area of community health, addressing issues ranging from communicable and non-communicable diseases to nutritional deficiencies.
Overview of Leading Indicators for Occupational Health and Safety in Mining
Provides companies with a way of understanding their impacts and making plans to contribute positively to the health outcomes of stakeholders.
Leadership Matters: Managing Fatal Risk Guidance
Provides managers with a tool to help reduce fatal and potentially-fatal events. It contains a series of self-diagnostic prompts that can assist in identifying gaps in safety management systems.
Good Practice Guidance on Health Impact Assessment
This guidance on health impact assessments (HIA) provides companies with a way to understand its impacts and make plans to contribute positively to the health outcomes of their stakeholders.
Leadership Matters: The Elimination of Fatalities
Senior Leaders are ultimately responsible for preventing fatalities. This guide contains questions based on ‘what do I do?’ and ‘what do I ensure is in place?’.
Good Practice Guidance on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria
Guidance that seeks to improve competencies at an operational level and encourage an integrated approach to addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.
The Setting and Use of Occupational Exposure Limits
Presents current perspectives on the occupational exposure limit (OEL) setting process and makes recommendations for a harmonized process.
Towards a Harmonized Approach to Setting Occupational Exposure Limits
Summarising the outcomes of an international workshop attended by regulatory scientists, academics and industry representatives looking at the setting occupational exposure limits (OELs).
Good Practice in Emergency Preparedness and Response
Provides an overview of the Awareness and Preparedness for Emergencies at Local Level (APELL) for mining and metals companies supported by case study examples.