Health and safety

Kingspan is committed to achieving the best practicable standards of health and safety for our employees, customers and visitors to our offices worldwide. Health and safety is considered to be an integral element in the overall management of our businesses and as a result is a daily priority of line management, and is always the first item for discussion at each divisional monthly meeting. Designated health and safety officers are in place at each division and actively work to identify and minimise health and safety risks. Where incidents occur they are thoroughly investigated, corrective action is taken to ensure they do not reoccur, and a summary of all incidents is reported to the Group Board on a monthly basis. In 2008, Kingspan began the process of implementing state of the art centralised health and safety reporting software, aimed at improving and standardising our health and safety procedures across the Group.

In 2008, for Kingspan as a whole, the number of accidents resulting in more than three days absence per 100 employees was 3.7 (2007:3.4), compared to the EU-15 average for the construction sector of 6.5 (Source: European Statistics on Accidents at Work publication by Eurostat). The average absenteeism rate across the whole Group in 2008 was 2.3%.

To ensure that Kingspan meets the highest standards, it looks to achieve ISO 18001 accreditation across all its sites. In 2007, 32% of Kingspan’s manufacturing facilities have achieved ISO 18001 with a further 38% actively working for the standard. During 2006, Kingspan had an independent audit of health and safety procedures carried out at all UK and Irish sites to ISO 18001 standards, and the recommendations in each report were implemented. OHSAS 18001, in conjunction with increased resources applied to the management of health and safety, has helped to deliver significant improvement in performance. A timing plan has been put in place and a number of divisions are in the process of integrating their Environmental Management System (accredited to ISO 14001) and their Occupational Health and Safety Management System (accredited to ISO 18001) where commonality exists. This will result in a single and combined management system manual and aims to improve the efficiency of internal systems audits.

Division		ISO 14001(Environmental)			Accreditation ISO 18001 (Health & Safety)			ISO 9001(Quality)
	Total number of sites	Achieved	Working for standard	%	Achieved	Working for standard	%	Achieved	Working for standard	%
Insulated panels	17	4	4	47%	4	5	53%	5	4	53%
Insulated boards	4	1	2	75%	2	1	75%	2	0	50%
Off-site & structural	13	4	4	62%	3	7	77%	8	1	69%
Environmental	26	4	11	58%	10	11	81%	20	0	77%
Raised access floors	5	1	0	20%	2	1	60%	3	0	60%
Total	65	14	21	54%	21	25	71%	38	5	66%

2007 ISO accreditation status across Kingspan Group.

Many serious or fatal accidents occur on construction sites, and many of these happen because workers are working at height for prolonged periods and suffer a fall.

The traditional construction process for cladding and insulating a roof involves multiple components including metal sheets, mineral fibre insulation, vapour barrier, spacer bars etc being man-handled into position and being assembled and fixed by workers at height. Similarly building a façade on site on a medium or high rise building involves working on scaffolding at height, building block or brick work, fitting insulation etc. This dangerous work is even more so in wet weather conditions since if the mineral fibre gets wet its insulation effectiveness will be significantly impaired (1% moisture in mineral fibre will reduce its insulation value by up to 80%). Typically, in wet or showery conditions work either stops or the workers have to try to protect the mineral fibre from getting wet, with resultant handling of the materials at height. In the case of traditional site assembled systems, until the system is fully installed, it is not capable of carrying weight even though it may appear to be safe.

The alternatives offered by Kingspan consist of a single component -- insulated panel for roof or wall and/or factory insulated Architectural Facade System (AFS) for wall application. These Kingspan products are craned into position without the use of scaffolding. There is a minimal amount of manual labour spent on the roof completing the fixing, and while this is in progress the panel is safe to walk on.

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