Health and safety
Health and safety is a core value, and our values remain unchanged
Our approach
Coal & Allied's goal is zero injuries and illness. We work hard to maintain an injury and illness free workplace where everyone - employees and contractors- go home safe and healthy each day.
Our Health, Safety, Environment and Quality (HSEQ) management system provides a framework for our health and safety standards and quality reporting requirements. This group wide system ensures all Rio Tinto operations uniformly work within internationally recognised health and safety frameworks, such as ISO14001 framework, and meet various certifications, internal and external reporting requirements.
The HSEQ system outlines a systematic approach for sound hazard and risk identification, evaluation and management, ongoing verification and review of performance.
Safety standards cover our principal safety hazards:
- isolation
- electrical safety
- vehicles and driving
- working at heights
- confined spaces
- cranes and lifting equipment
- air travel
- underground safety.
Ensuring all employees and contractors work in a healthy and safe environment is achieved through the implementation of policies, systems and procedures by dedicated health and safety professionals at our sites.Our occupational health standards apply to all our employees and contractors and are regularly audited, providing the opportunity for continual improvement in our performance.
Health standards cover the following key areas:
- dust
- noise
- manual handling and vibration
- hazardous substances
- radiation
- thermal stress
- fitness for work
- travel and remote site health.
Our leadership team is accountable for our performance against these standards. They are supported by competent and trained personnel at each site whose responsibilities include implementing health systems and monitoring workplace conditions to control exposure to health hazards. Health and safety advisers manage risk registers, conduct personal monitoring for dust, noise, thermal stress and audiometric testing, as well as educate and inform operational teams of health findings and initiatives.
The implementation and business performance of each site against the health and safety standards is checked through an independent audit process.
Maintaining a safe and healthy culture
We employ a range of tools and programmes to ensure that health and safety remains foremost in the minds of employees and leaders. These include:
- Safety Leadership Development Programme
- TapRoot investigations of all safety incidents
- 'Take5' quick personal safety risk assessment
- job hazard analyses (JHAs)
- 'peer to peer' safety interactions
- Managing director's 'Golden Rules'.
Read more about our health and safety performance by selecting from the navigation menu.