Health & Safety

Sesa Goa’s corporate Health, Safety, Environment and Corporate Social Responsibility (HSEC) department and the management review committee frame policy and guidelines on HSE; they also review the effectiveness of the system periodically. Today, we have a well-defined policy on Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (“SHEQ”) for all our operating units. The committee guides our sustainable development endeavour, sets annual targets and monitors progress in line with our HSE and social policies with a clear focus on integrating HSE aspects in the decision-making process. All our locations are certified for ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 (except SRL for OHSAS 18001, which shall be certified in the next financial year) and we are going ahead with implementing SA 8000 and propose to get certified during 2011-12. Through these endeavours and initiatives, the Company strives hard to prove that mining can be a safe haven for workers.

The entire workforce is represented in formal joint management-worker health and safety committees. We have well qualified HSE and CSR teams across all our operations comprising qualified and experienced professionals. Our priorities are to use resources such as energy and water efficiently, minimise our impact on biodiversity and landscape functions, and reduce waste and emissions including greenhouse gases. The HSE committee’s agenda is taken forward by senior management at each site and they are supported by HSE professionals who implement this agenda.

In essence, we believe that an organizational approach to safety is effective only when both the work design and employee behaviour work in coordination towards achieving health and safety goals. Many organizational and individual issues emerge in the management of employee health and safety and to protect both the Company and the individual all the concerned parties need to work in tandem to achieve them.