Performance in 2007
Heineken aims to ensure the safety of everyone working in or on brewery sites. For that reason, we include in our reporting both contractors and Heineken employees. For 2007, we regret to report a total of eight fatalities related to our activities, five of whom were directly employed by Heineken and three who were employed by contractors.
Two of the fatalities were related to production activities, one in Russia involving machinery and one in Spain as the result of a fall. Two of the reported fatalities were related to contractors working on greenfield sites: one person in India as the result of electrocution and one person in Laos as the result of being hit by a truck.
Four of the fatal accidents were due to road traffic accidents. In Egypt, two sales representatives were killed as their car, while under repair, was hit by another. In Russia, two sales representatives lost their lives as a result of separate road traffic accidents.
In Croatia, one person was found unconscious near the brewery and subsequently died. The exact circumstances of this accident have been investigated and are currently the subject of legal proceedings in Croatia.
Heineken extends its sympathies and condolences to all the families of those mentioned.
Our accident frequency rate decreased from 2.7 accidents per
100 FTEs in 2006 to 2.6 in 2007. Improvements in our Western Europe and Asia Pacific regions were partly counterbalanced by increased accident frequency rates in our Africa & Middle East and Central & Eastern Europe regions. Due to these circumstances approximately half of our production units met the target for 2007 of a maximum of 2.1 accidents per 100 FTEs.
The number of accidents involving contractor personnel sadly increased from 84 to 143. This remains a point of attention for future safety activities and best practices on contractor safety need to be shared.
The severity of the recorded accidents increased slightly, from 62 lost calendar days per 100 FTEs in 2006 to 68 lost days in 2007. Approximately half of the production units met the target of 42 days per 100 FTEs. The overall increase was caused by the impact of a limited number of more severe accidents, which occurred in St. Denis
(Ile de la Réunion), Schiltigheim and Mons-en-Baroeul (France).
We will do everything we can to continue to make Heineken a safe place to work. However, given our focus on both contractors and Heineken employees and the current level of growth, construction and acquisition within our business, we recognise that we may not reach our long-term objectives by the end of 2008. Alongside increasing our efforts, we will review our long-term targets to assess their feasibility for the Heineken business as it stands today.
The number of registered complaints for nuisance caused by noise and odour emissions decreased from 55 in 2006 to 37 in 2007. This is mainly the result of the lower number of registered complaints in Western Europe.
In 2007, several environmental and/or safety incidents were reported. The majority of these incidents related to waste-water issues. In most instances the quality of the effluent exceeded legal limits. Fourteen production units had to pay fines because of one or more environmental incidents. The total amount of fines paid in relation to this was €1,270,000.
In total, 12 production units reported one or more violations of local safety regulations. In seven of these cases fines were imposed. The total sum of these fines amounted to €32,600.