The ultimate goal of our safety program is to send every worker home safe and healthy, every day.

Management Approach

Occupational health and safety is a core value of our company and one of our most material sustainable development issues. We believe that all injuries and occupational illnesses are preventable. “Safe Production” captures the essence of our philosophy that safety and health considerations are integral to, and compatible with, all other management functions in the organization. We consider safety and health initiatives, both on and off the job, to be a critically important investment in our employees.

Encouraging employees to assume personal responsibility for their safety and to look out for their co-workers is a good business practice. As such we promote safety as a central value to our operations. Safety is a key metric used in the company’s performance management and employee development program, thereby encouraging safe work practices throughout our workforce.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. holds all contractors operating at our facilities accountable for the same level of safety awareness and performance that we expect of our own employees. All contractors are required to ensure that their employees, subcontractors, suppliers, vendors and visitors comply with the provisions of the company’s contractor health and safety manual
as a mandatory requirement for doing business with us.

Safety and health matters are managed as all other company management functions, with measurable targets and routine performance reviews. All company operations have dedicated site health and safety professionals who serve as technical resources to operations management. These professionals serve as a conduit to the workforce, responsible for teaching and reinforcing key safety behaviors for specific job functions at specific locations.

The health and safety professionals working in our operating units are charged with assisting line management in achieving safety and health objectives. They assist management in developing and implementing effective programs and activities and analyze safety statistics to identify trends that may be conducive to improved safety and health performance. The corporate safety and health staff provides general oversight of programs, assesses compliance with internal and external standards, and establishes metrics for measuring performance.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. conducts occupational health and safety audits on a scheduled basis at each of our operations. The purpose of these audits is to verify that occupational safety and health matters are well managed and that programs support continuous performance improvement. The audits are managed by the Corporate Occupational Health and Safety Department, and audit activities are conducted by a team of safety and health professionals from a highly qualified third-party consultancy.

Our major operating sites also have committed to seeking certification under the international OHSAS 18001 standard for safety and health management systems. To date, 13 of our operating mines and metals processing facilities are OHSAS 18001 certified and all others are working toward certification.

We are currently building a custom application to manage incident reporting, incident investigations, action items, audits, assessments and surveys. The goal of this new system is to have a single global application to manage incident and audit information. The merger of two current reporting systems into one global application will upgrade our capability to measure and analyze key performance areas, improving our ability to manage the safety and health function.

One of the methods used to integrate safety into the culture of our company is through safety committees and we maintain formal management/worker safety committees across most of our operating sites.

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