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Environment
Bringing benefits to the environment
Many of the solutions delivered by Keller are intrinsically beneficial
to the environment, including land reclamation schemes, soil erosion
control, flood control, decontamination or containment of contamination
and preparation of brownfield sites.
At Great Orton in Cumbria, Keller was employed during the year
to assist in the design and build of a sealed foot-and-mouth disposal
pit for DEFRA. Less high profile, but just as significant in terms
of environmental benefits, are the many smaller, brownfield sites
where Keller is regularly involved in bringing derelict land back
into use. In the
UK, these included a site clean-up at Bristol, including the removal
of contaminated soils and treatment of contaminated ground water;
the construction of a slurry cut-off wall to enhance protection
to a site of special scientific interest in Peterborough; and
remedial works at a former gasworks site at Portadown. In Europe,
Keller Grundbau used horizontal jet grouting to decontaminate
subsoil, as part of a groundwater improvement scheme in Bruck,
Austria, and in Slovakia and Poland we have installed miles of
barriers in river dykes to prevent flooding. At Niagara Falls
in North America, we sealed leaks in sewerage systems which prevented
water entering the systems, thus reducing the volume of sewerage
requiring treatment.
During the year, Keller continued its support for various environmental
research projects. These included research into sustainable construction,
through its sponsorship of a Queen’s University, Belfast,
Ph.D programme. The Group is represented on the Industrial Advisory
Board of the QUESTOR centre (Queen’s University Environmental
Science and Technology Research Centre) and, in partnership with
the Environmental Agency, the QUESTOR centre and others, Keller
is involved in the development of permeable reactive barriers.
Our specialist services business, Makers, is working with local
authorities and housing associations across the UK on the structural
refurbishment of social housing, much of which was constructed
in the 1960s and 1970s. As an alternative to demolition and rebuild,
these projects are resource efficient and have fewer environmental
impacts. In addition, they invariably bring thermal efficiency
benefits, resulting in reduced energy consumption.
Environmental management systems
Notwithstanding the positive impacts of many of the schemes in
which we are involved, we do recognise that many of our site activities
have environmental effects. Most notably, these involve noise,
dust and slurry emissions and the use of specialist products,
such as grouts. We have a continuous programme of trying to mitigate
these impacts by, for example, selecting new plant with reduced
noise emissions, researching the viability of new, more benign
materials and seeking better ways of capturing waste from drilling.
Our environmental
management systems are not uniform across the Group. Our businesses,
which have their own environmental policies, have each adopted
a system that reflects local regulations, culture and business
needs. Because of the differences in local conditions, we do not
believe in imposing a “one size fits all” solution,
but we do encourage a regular and open debate on environmental
issues at the quarterly meetings of our Executive Committee to
identify and, where appropriate, share best practice.
During the year, our UK businesses tested revised environmental
management systems. These are now being integrated into more mature
health and safety and quality assurance management systems. Both
UK businesses have identified measurable targets, against which
they will report in the current year. Makers intends to introduce
an independent audit of its environmental system by 2003, with
the aim of achieving ISO14001 accreditation.
Progress in developing environmental management systems in our
UK businesses is ahead of other parts of the Group, mainly because
of the business drivers which do not yet apply to the same degree
elsewhere. However, as a UK based plc, we are committed to improving
our environmental record in whichever part of the world we are
operating. To this end, we plan to introduce during 2002 a system
of reporting progress against environmental issues throughout
the Group. Our emphasis will be on identifying targets which are
appropriate to local conditions and are recognised by local government
agencies as bringing benefits to the community.
Working with the community
Most projects in which Group companies are involved are located
in remote areas away from local populations and therefore, there
is usually little impact on, or relationship with, a local community.
For most of our businesses, support for local community projects
is indirect – by, for example, sponsoring or supporting the
efforts of employees who are involved in charitable or community
projects. At Hayward Baker, for example, this means a dollar-for-dollar
matching of employees’ charitable donations.
A notable exception to this is Makers which, through its social
housing refurbishment schemes, has significant interfaces with
residents and community groups. Makers prides itself in having
an effective dialogue with residents, which includes the distribution
of site brochures, in four different languages in some cases,
to advise residents on how they will be affected by the works.
Typical community projects in which Makers gets involved include
planting trees to mark the completion of a project and giving
talks to local school children on the dangers of entering a construction
site.
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Health
and safety
As with environmental management systems, there is no single health
and safety management system across the Group, as each business
is subject to different safety standards and regulations. There
is, however, a strong safety culture within all the businesses,
which means that safety features high on the senior management agenda,
safety training at all levels is taken very seriously and, on the
ground, significant resources are dedicated to inspecting job sites
for potential hazards and giving on site “tool-box talks”
to ensure that safety awareness governs the daily work activities.
In North America, a company’s safety record, relative to other
businesses, is measured through the experience modification rating
(EMR). A low score indicates a good safety record. The EMR for Hayward
Baker and Case is 0.73, against an industry standard rating of 1.00.
This reflects the effort and resources which are dedicated to improving
safety performance. Both Hayward Baker and Case have full-time,
dedicated safety professionals as well as regional safety officers
and operate schemes through which employees are incentivised to
come up with new ways of improving safety.
The key safety objective for our Franki operations in Australia
is to achieve zero lost time injuries (LTIs) – that is, an
injury that causes the employee to be away from work for the shift
following the shift in which the injury occurred. LTIs numbered
ten in 2001, the same level as the previous year, despite a 3% increase
in the number of employees. The number of lost days, number of occurrences,
incident rate and frequency rate were all down on the previous year,
whilst the severity rate, calculated as work days lost per occurrence,
was only slightly up.
In our Continental Europe and overseas operations, a procedure for
on-site health and safety was introduced in January 2001 as part
of a quality management system. In addition, operating units are
required to respect and comply with all local regulations. To the
extent feasible, training courses are held on a regular basis in
order to improve risk awareness on site. Each business unit employs
a safety officer, either on a full or part-time basis, according
to the business need and local regulations. Performance is monitored
by the divisional head office in Germany and compared to international
standards. Rates of sick leave remain below the industry average.
As a trend, it is apparent that the number of accidents on site
declined in 2001 compared with the previous year. In view of the
newness of the safety management system, a full year on year comparison
of accident rates is not possible this year, but will be reported
in future years.
In the UK,
Makers recorded a reduction in the total number of accidents reported
through the accident reporting procedure to 114 (2000: 127). The
number of accidents reported to the Health & Safety Executive
(“HSE”) showed little change at 14 (2000: 13). However,
there has been a shift in the type of accidents reported, with
the number of reportable accidents involving members of the public
reducing from three to one and reportable accidents involving
employees increasing from ten to 13. This is set against a 15%
increase in the average number of employees. As the accident frequency
rate (AFR) and accident incident rate (AIR) do not include reportable
accidents to members of the public, the shift in reportable accident
type has had an adverse effect on these statistics, with an AFR
of 1.05 (2000: 0.93) and an AIR of 2,174 (2000:1,927). Keller
Ground Engineering recorded an AFR of 12.5 (2000:14) and an AIR
of 2,991 (2000:3,363). There were no HSE prosecutions brought
against either of the UK businesses in 2001 and there are none
pending.
Employees
Throughout the year our businesses continued to use a variety
of media and forums for communicating with their employees including
company newsletters, consultative councils, results presentations,
suggestion schemes and informal channels, such as company-wide
social events.
In addition to job-specific and safety training, in which considerable
resource is invested by all our businesses, the Group has a three-tier
management development programme. It comprises basic modules,
which are offered locally in the main centres of operation; a
strategic programme offered each year to some 20 managers from
across the Group; and the further development of individuals at,
or just below, board level through executive programmes at Insead
and Harvard business schools.
It is our policy to employ and train disabled people wherever
their skills and qualifications allow and when suitable vacancies
are available. Disabled employees are encouraged to undertake
training and career development to prepare them for promotion.
Should existing employees become disabled, every effort is made
to find appropriate work and training if appropriate.
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