Creating Value with the Future in Mind - Anglo American South Africa

investing in our people safety
safety
The issue
Offering a safe and
healthy workplace is a
core Anglo American
value – we do not
accept any harm
coming to those who
work for us. Actions
taken to improve our
health and safety
performance can also
have positive impacts
across other aspects
of the business.
participants in the
Anglo American SHE Risk
Management Programme
since inception
7,400
Our performance
In 2012, 13 people lost their lives as
a result of work-related activities at
Anglo American mines. An additional
five deaths resulting from public
transportation incidents and criminal
activity were also reported in 2012.
While this represents a reduction
since 2011 (17), any loss of life is
unacceptable. We do not accept that
any employee or contractor should
have to risk their life while working for
us. Seven of these deaths occurred
at our Platinum business, where the
majority of fatal incidents still occur,
despite a 42% improvement since
2011 and 61% over the past five years.
In June 2012, our most senior leaders
met for a safety leadership summit
to plan the next stage of our safety
improvement journey under the overall
theme ‘The way we work’. Opening the
event in Johannesburg, chief executive
Cynthia Carroll stressed that the
summit’s purpose was not to launch
any new safety initiatives: “Our
objective is to have an honest and
open examination of how we can do
things better – not just confront the
bad, but celebrate the good and share
best practice.”
In 2012, our lost-time injury frequency
rate (LTIFR) dropped to 0.60 (1) – a 6%
improvement when compared with
2011 and 42% in relation to 2008.
Anglo American’s LTIFR definition
reduction in fatal incidents
500
at Platinum since 2008
0
61% includes all injuries that result in
LTIFR
lost-time or restricted duties from the
calendar day after the injury occurred.
Furthermore, our total recordable
case frequency rate, which includes
any injury that requires more than
first-aid treatment, has started to
improve. A number of operations
continue to demonstrate that zero
harm is possible. The Los Bronces
Development Project has, for example,
been one of the safest mining projects
to be carried out in Chile. The project
recorded a lost-time injury frequency
rate of 0.24 (based on 200,000 hours
of exposure) from over 58 million
man-hours worked.
Total number of fatal injuries
and fatal injury frequency
rate 2008–2012
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
FIFR
Fatalities
Total number of lost-time
injuries and lost-time injury
frequency rate 2008–2012
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
0.016
0.012
0.008
0.004
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Lost-time injuries
0
1.2
0.9
0.6
0.3
0.0
(1)
Metallurgical Coal’s application of the definition
has differed slightly in that minor injuries that did
not require medical treatment and did not result
in restricted work for longer than five days were
not included. Excluding Metallurgical Coal, the
Group LTIFR for 2012 was 0.55 and the LTISR was
208. This inconsistency is being rectified in 2013.
44 Anglo American plc Sustainable Development Report 2012