Benchmarking Safety Data: Progress of ICMM Company Members (2012-2013)

For each of our 22 member company CEOs, any harm is unacceptable and we believe incidents that could cause serious harm to our people are preventable. We are committed to providing leadership and resources for managing health and safety at our operations.

Through this report, ICMM is able to share aggregated key safety performance data and illustrate trends across 20 companies, while also enabling more effective future benchmarking, comparison and analysis.

Background

ICMM member companies’ commitment to continuous improvement as expressed through ICMM Principle 5 – Seek continual improvement of our health and safety performance – reflects the need for collective action.

Each member company reports safety data externally through annual sustainable development reports, but differences in government reporting requirements and reporting periods, as well as differences in the criteria through which injuries are classified, have posed challenges to gathering and presenting comparable data across the membership.

The data in this report is subject to various limitations and therefore not fully comparable.  However, members have already started to take the steps necessary to change this.  In 2013, ICMM began a process to refine its health and safety performance indicator definitions and reporting criteria. In January 2014, ICMM published the Health and Safety Performance Indicators report which contains recommended definitions and reporting boundaries for lagging health and safety performance indicators.

Worker and Community Health

ICMM’s member companies are committed to ensuring that health is considered alongside safety in future work. We recognize that ICMM’s work regarding health and occupational diseases does not have the same level of maturity as our work on safety at this point in time.

2012–2013 Data

Table 1 shows key safety performance data of 20 ICMM member companies between 2012 and 2013. (Table 2 provides a full breakdown.)

Table 1: Summary of Safety Performance Data, 2012–2014

* Rates are per 1 million hours worked (calculated by dividing the total number of fatalities or TRIs by the hours worked at the companies, and then multiplied by 1 million).

The 2012-2013 data tells us:

• 90 people died from member company occupational injuries in 2012, and 91 people in 2013.
• Nearly 14,000 injuries were recorded in 2012, a figure that dropped by 16% in 2013.
• There is no correlation in this period between the reduction of injury rate and deaths.  

The data refers to the calendar year January to December. However, ICMM member companies report through different cycles and there may some differences in comparison to the safety data in their sustainable development reports.

Fatalities

In 2013 at the Freeport-McMoRan Grasberg operation in Indonesia, there were 28 deaths and 10 people were injured in a tragic accident at an underground training facility, an event unprecedented in over 40 years.

This demonstrates that there can be no complacency. Fatalities in the mining industry were a sad reality in the first half of 2014, both from within ICMM member companies and non- member companies. Accidents like the high-profile May 2014 coal mine explosion in Soma, Turkey – although not a member company operation – is still a reminder to us that risks remain in the industry and must continually be assessed and managed. There is a shared recognition that an alternative approach for preventing fatalities is needed.

Recordable Injuries

The combined experience of ICMM members has shown that in safety, one size does not fit all. Safe production is built shift by shift, day by day, and over time to become a fatality- and  injury-free industry. This requires leadership, investment, and the commitment to the ethos that if a company cannot mine safely – it  should not mine at all.

It is a reality in the mining industry that neither rate nor number of recordable injuries is a predictor of fatalities. Member companies have made progress in reducing frequency rates for injuries but continue to struggle to reduce the rate of fatalities. Although this report only spans two years, the data reflects this fact. The characteristics and causes of the most serious injuries and fatal incidents are different from those of less serious injuries and must be considered separately.

Making a Difference Together

Every member company is working to eliminate fatalities. Several elements are key to reaching to this goal: effective management of inherent hazards; visible leadership of CEOs and senior leaders who set the tone for a values-based culture of health and safety; and an environment where all are aware of their individual accountability, understanding that everybody can effect change at every level.  

The linkages between leadership and safety are referred to in more detail in ICMM’s Leadership Matters series and at the 2012 Health & Safety Conference.

The Journey Continues

It is important to remain aware that too often we  look back after mistakes are made, and attempt to draw conclusions to correct the results.

With injuries and fatalities, this is just too late.

A forward-looking approach is essential to enable anticipation and prevention of incidents before they occur.  For example, through the implementation of leading safety indicators,   this change is already taking place in our member companies, helping to ensure continuous improvement in the way we work.

Reporting on safety performance  in 2012 and 2013 enables ICMM’s member companies to work towards effective benchmarking of safety data as we continue on the journey towards the elimination of fatalities and injuries.  

*Rates are per 1 million hours worked. (Calculated by multiplying total number by 1 million hours and dividing by total worked hours for the year.)