Health & Safety

Occupational health & safety

UCB is committed to protecting the health and safety of its staff at work with one goal: no accidents.

In 2010, the level of “presenteeism” at UCB exceeded 97.5%.

Continuing to reduce the number and severity of accidents

UCB’s global Lost Time Incident Rate (LTIR) for 2010 was 2.33, resulting in 2.33 accidents with more than one day of absence per one million of hours worked. Our global Lost Time Severity Rate (LTSR) was 0.05, implying 0.05 days were lost per one thousand of hours worked. There were no fatal injuries.

Overall, UCB safety performance continues to consistently improved in 2010, relative to last two years (2009: LTIR= 3.34 and LTSR= 0.08 & 2008: LTIR= 4.21 and LTSR= 0.11).

Greater attention to and more focused resources on safety

In 2010, the Annual Global Health & Safety Meeting followed by quarterly conference calls allowed us to intensify the sharing of best practices. Accident awareness was substantially enhanced by implementing a global Health & Safety dashboard including timely accident investigation reporting and corrective action plans. Another trigger to prioritising safety at work was the link of site safety indicators to the management performance system.

Furthermore, a broad safety programme was launched at our largest site in Braine-l’Alleud (Belgium) early 2010, involving more than 100 champions contributing to eight health safety programmes rolled out across 12 activity areas: more than 85% of the initial 2010 objectives were reached.

Safeguarding employees’ health

OHSAS 18001 is a management system that helps manage occupational health and safety risks. Two manufacturing sites - Bulle (Switzerland) and Vapi (India) – already gained OHSAS 18001 certification. UCB intends to extend such OHSAS 18001 certification to its other main manufacturing sites in the future. The site of Braine-l’Alleud will be starting this process in 2011 with the aim of obtaining the OSHAS 18001 certification in 2012.