The safety of our people is a moral imperative that underpins the sustainability and efficiency of our operations. We strive to achieve our ultimate safety goal of zero harm by proactively managing safety risks through strict and consistent implementation of Exxaro's five safety focus areas.
Received six safety awards at the 2023 COALSAFE Awards
Implemented health and safety representative empowerment programmes at BUs
Matla, Leeuwpan and Grootegeluk received ISO 45001 certification
Demonstrated our commitment to the five safety focus areas at the 2023 sustainability summit
Launched the Stop and Fix campaign and introduced going back to basics at all BUs
To safeguard the safety of our people by preventing and mitigating safety incidents, eliminating repeat incidents, embedding safe behaviours and implementing stringent risk management processes across the group
KPIs:
Our safety strategy supports the strategic outcomes of our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy.
Empower people to create impact
Make our minerals and energy businesses thrive
Exxaro collaborates with the Minerals Council to go beyond compliance in managing safety by:
Employees
To embed safety awareness and life-saving behaviours through training and safety campaigns
Minerals Council and DMRE
To comply with safety-related regulations and practices, and drive safety initiatives
Business partners
To implement safety initiatives and promote safe behaviour with our contractors
Regional tripartite forums
To drive zero harm through collaboration between Exxaro, the DMRE and union representatives
Future focus
We will continue to pursue zero harm and reduce safety-related incidents by focusing on the following:
Safety is critical to achieving the objectives of our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy. Supported by the five key safety focus areas, our safety strategy steers us in our approach to managing safety-related risks and preventing incidents.
We review our safety strategy annually to ensure the methods we use to achieve our safety focus areas are relevant. We also review our safety targets every year, based on prior performance, and apply stringent management protocols, programmes and systems. The Safety Always All the Way and Khetha Ukuphepha campaigns reiterate our philosophy that every life counts and encourage proactive, preventive action to address safety-compromising behaviours.
Incredible leadership
We hold an annual leadership safety day and the sustainability summit, led by our CEO, to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to our employees' safety. The 2023 sustainability summit was hosted at Grootegeluk on 20 April 2023. The sustainability summit allows the executive committee:
Communication
We provide regular communication on our safety performance, which includes incidents and learnings from incidents as well as actions to be taken to mitigate emerging risks. Messages are shared on virtual platforms across the group:
Consequence management
Training
Safety training is one of the interventions aimed at capacitating employees and raising their awareness. We provide comprehensive training to address safety risks. In 2023, this included:
Risk management
We have implemented a process to proactively identify, assess and implement effective controls to address risks and opportunities with the aim of preventing and mitigating incidents and improving our safety performance. We have also implemented a high-risk task verification process at our BUs, led by site management, to verify the effectiveness of controls for high-risk activities and non-routine work.
Our people are ultimately responsible for their own safety; however, accountability for their safety is built into leadership and governance structures, and ultimately rests with the board. Employees are encouraged through the Stop and Fix campaign to exercise sections 22 and 23 of the MHSA in terms of stopping work when it is perceived to be unsafe. Employees are also encouraged to care for mutual safety in the workplace and hold one another accountable for safety behaviours.
Cennergi's windfarms comply with the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), 1993 (Act 85 of 1993) and the LSP with the OHSA and MHSA. Cennergi's head of operations reports safety incident investigation findings to the windfarms and company boards. Site managers and health and safety representatives conduct investigations following reports from contractors. LTIs and medical treatment cases are immediately reported to the group health and safety department.
CASE STUDY:
Our Stop and Fix campaign is encouraging employees to "go back to basics" and make safety personal to achieve zero harm.
The campaign was launched at Matla in June 2023, where employees were instructed on how to practically implement the five key safety focus areas, and was rolled out to other BUs. Campaign champions and safety representatives were appointed.
We also launched a critical season campaign as part of the Stop and Fix campaign to address the historical upward trend recorded in the number of safety incidents between October and January. This included implementing increased safety measures such as increased alcohol testing, supervision and fatigue management.
| Exxaro | Cennergi | ||||||
| Target | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
| Fatalities | 0 | 0 RA | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HPIs | 4 | 5 | 1 | ||||
| LTIs | 11RA | 7 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| LTIFR | 0.05 | 0.07RA | 0.05 | 0.08 | |||
Our LTIFR increased due to an increase in hand and finger injuries associated with lifting and material handling, as well as slip and fall incidents that occurred at our BUs. We remain committed to reducing our LTIFR and will continue to intensify our day-to-day efforts to achieve zero harm.
The leading causes of LTI and HPI incidents included:
We had fourRA section 54(a) (mining activity stopped) (2022: seven) stoppages.
We have revised our incident management process to enhance incident investigations, subsequent corrective actions and learnings. This has contributed to the decrease in HPIs compared to last year, and we are optimistic it will assist us to reduce our LTIs going forward.
No reportable health and safety incidents were submitted to the DEL (2022: none). In quarterly external compliance audits by Libryo, Tsitsikamma and Amakhala Emoyeni achieved average scores of 95.6% (2022: 96.4%) and 96.8% (2022: 96%) respectively.
Following the tragic fatality experienced at Belfast mine on 15 August 2022, we implemented the following to prevent similar incidents and demonstrate our commitment to achieving zero harm:
Campaigns
Bouncing Back at Belfast launched to uplift employees' morale and offer them counselling
Stop and Fix launched across BUs
Apps
Near miss reporting app launched to report safety-compromising behaviours
Visible felt leadership app launched to enhance leadership presence and engagement on the field
Back to basics
Safety focus areas reinforced at the sustainability summit to eliminate repeat incidents and go back to basics in terms of operational safety
Khetha Ukuphepha principle reinforced – every life counts
Learning from incidents
Revised incident management standard introduced to check and verify the effectiveness of corrective actions and enable meaningful learnings from internal operations and across the mining industry.
Group
One year fatality-free 15 August 2023
Grootegeluk
11 years fatality-free
Leeuwpan
33 years fatality-free
Matla
Six years fatality-free
Belfast
One year fatality-free
Mines in closure
13 years fatality-free
FerroAlloys
26 years fatality-free
Cennergi
Seven years fatality-free
As we progress on our journey towards zero harm, we are extremely proud of the achievements we have made along the way. We were honoured to be recognised at the 2023 COALSAFE Awards, which celebrate the efforts of the coal mining industry in upholding safety standards. In the safety category, Exxaro was awarded for 18 000 fatality-free production shifts at Matla Mine 1 and 10 000 fatality-free production shifts at Matla Mine 3. Leeuwpan mine received two awards: one for an LTIFR of 0.00 and another for achieving 30 200 fatality‑free production shifts. Grootegeluk received an outstanding award for the most improved dust milestone and the Grootegeluk plant division was recognised for achieving 15 094 fatality-free production shifts.
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