LANXESS celebrates National Safety Week at its sites

Nagda / Jhagadia, March 12, 2012: LANXESS, a global specialty chemicals company, which is committed towards the safety of its people and protection of the environment, celebrated the National Safety Week from March 4 to March 10, 2012 at both LANXESS’ manufacturing sites in Nagda in Madhya Pradesh and Jhagadia in Gujarat. Several programs were organized at the sites during this week which were meant to enhance the awareness of safety protocols amongst employees and increase their alertness towards areas/situations that may lead to an incident in future.

In Nagda, the week started off with distribution of safety badges to all employees, and an inauguration program wherein they took an oath for being responsible for maintaining health and safety in the organization. This was followed by an exhibition by third party equipment providers on personal safety gear and training on their applications. Another good initiative was for truck drivers, in which they were trained on how to carry hazardous materials safely, particularly in bad road conditions. Some of the interesting highlights of the week were a one act play by the employees working at the site and painting and slogan competitions organized for their children, who took enthusiasm in presenting their ideas on safety. Regular training programs like fire mock drill and training for line managers on methodology for hazardous operations were also conducted, which act as a review mechanism for the existing safety protocols at site.

In Jhagadia too, several interactive programs were conducted. This included a safety quiz for employees to gauge their level of awareness, essay competition where they could express their views in any language of their choice, the ‘Safety Man of the Year’ selection based on an individual’s contribution towards safety, exhibition of safety gears, training on working at heights and usage of personal protective equipment among others.
Here, two interesting concepts were introduced in this year’s celebration. One was identifying ‘What went wrong’ by picking up specific cases in point and suggesting how such occurrences could be prevented in future. The other interesting competition was for employees to submit cases of ‘near miss accidents’ at the site that were observed throughout the year. These activities were aimed at employees’ own initiative of recognizing potential causes of accidents and adopting measures for minimizing them. A housekeeping audit was also carried out at the site during this week and the best maintained area was awarded.

Both the sites showcased banners and posters across the site which created an environment for the celebration of the National Safety Week. The celebration was completed with the prize distribution ceremony and a closing speech by the site heads – Mr. Bappa Bandyopadhyay in Nagda and Dr. Dattaprasad Talekar in Jhagadia. All employees participated with interest and took away learning that they could adopt for their daily work at the site.

All manufacturing sites of LANXESS have to mandatorily comply with the HSEQ (Health, Safety, Environment and Quality) policy which states safety as one of the parameters which is accorded the same priority as commercial efficiency. Uniformly high standards for planning, constructing and operating facilities are applied to ensure the maximum possible process and plant safety. A comprehensive safety management system (SMS) sets out regulations governing all safety-relevant processes at production plants. Regular checks and intensive staff education and training programs ensure that the SMS is implemented consistently and help prevent accidents.

LANXESS is a leading specialty chemicals company with sales of EUR 8.8 billion in 2011 and currently around 16,400 employees in 30 countries. The company is at present represented at 47 production sites worldwide. The core business of LANXESS is the development, manufacturing and marketing of plastics, rubber, intermediates and specialty chemicals. LANXESS is a member of the leading sustainable indices Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World and FTSE4Good.

Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by LANXESS AG management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.