Safety, Health and Environment

We are successful at GPIC because Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) management systems is not just a programme; it is a way of life for us. As a forward-looking petrochemical and fertiliser company, GPIC recognises that our commitment to HSE is the foundation for building and maintaining trust and public confidence. It is part of being a good citizen, a good neighbour and a good partner. HSE excellence drives our commitment to sustainable business and defines who we are and what we stand for. By instilling a culture that ensures the well-being and safety of our employees, we empower them to focus on the details and to do what is right, first time, every time. This leads to improved performance and reliable, consistent and predictable delivery of our high-quality products.

At GPIC, safety, health and environmental performance is at the top of our agenda and is measured, reported, evaluated and continuously improved upon. It is part of our company’s regular review process and we have set stringent, clear and visible goals with leading and lagging indicators throughout all levels and processes of the organisation. We focus and apply measures to all of the elements of safety culture; Systems and Processes; Skills and Knowledge of Individuals; Behaviours; Attitudes, Perception and Leadership. We have long realised and recognised that there is no single reliable measure of health and safety performance. What is required is a variety of measures providing information on a range of health and safety activities.

As a forward-thinking company, GPIC understands the worker safety dimension of sustainability and has started proactively leveraging the OHS and sustainability connection. With the launch of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), GPIC is using these global strategies to underpin its sustainability efforts.

In 2019 the biggest achievement was to maintain our excellent HSE achievements through visible safety leadership, focused risk management, enhanced safety and emergency response training, audits and benchmarking. Some of the noteworthy initiatives and programmes of 2019 include the weekly safety summary highlighting the incidents, root cause analysis, positives and focus areas. Fire plans for high-risk scenarios were also prepared enhancing the emergency response preparedness. OHSAS 18001 was successfully transited to ISO 45001. In 2019 we rolled out a comprehensive Safety Related Training plan for 2019-2021 focusing on Emergency Response. Specialised Training including Fire Fighter and Hazmat Training. Certified training courses such as NFPA Fire Code and NFPA 101 Living Safety Code and Authorised Gas Tester and Radiation Awareness Courses were provided.

These continual improvement efforts culminated in achieving a record +32 million working hours for its workforce and contractors without any lost time accident, exceeding 16 years of safe work. Moreover, we did not have any Tier 1 and Tier 2 process safety incidents, zero reportable environmental incidents and zero security breaches and incidents.

With regard to its excellence in occupational health, safety and the environment, GPIC has been awarded the RoSPA International Safety and Chemical Sector Awards from the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) from the UK. These awards were presented to GPIC for its outstanding application of SHE standards and for undertaking a leading role in this area. GPIC also successfully completed the construction and commissioning of its new Urea Formaldehyde (UF-85) Unit of the Urea Plant with no lost time injury.

We also won the Ministry of Labor award for the “Excellence in the Occupational Safety and Safe Working Environment”. The following is a list of significant Safety, Security, Health and Environment (SSHE) achievements during 2019:

• Safety training continued to be provided for both Operations and Non-Operations personnel. During 2019 there were 55 Modulised Emergency Response Training (MERT) sessions, attended by plants operation personnel.

• GPIC’s First Aid Training and Community Outreach Programme with the National Safety Council (NSC)-USA, which started in 2012 is continuing and to date we have trained more than 400 employees, contractors, industrial and university students, summer camp children, employees’ wives and others.

• Walk the Procedure initiative launched. The first of its kind, with a related Standing Instruction. Ten SOPs are selected related to fire equipment maintenance, emergency response etc. and the concerned fire operator demonstrates practically to the safety supervisor all the steps as articulated in the SOP.

• 172 employees have attended Safety Media e-learning courses and 60 hours of Safety Media e-learning were completed in 2019. These courses are instructionally designed to engage staff for maximum knowledge retention, including full testing and risk analysis of employees. All courses are SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) compliant and CPD (Continuing Professional Development) certified, with the majority now achieving RoSPA accreditation.

• Fire & Safety and Process Safety Campaigns through safety moments, process safety beacons and flashes were enhanced in 2019. One hundred and twenty flashes, videos, and safety moments. Twelve process safety beacons and 10 EPSC Lessons learned. Main campaigns were; on hand safety, safety glasses, near miss reporting, speeding, safety culture; safety complacence. Similarly Environmental, Sustainability and SDG campaigns through +100 flashes, videos + newsletters. Main

campaigns were on; Zero plastic, paper consumption reduction, recycling, responsible consumption and production, climate change, SDGS Awareness and GRI Reporting etc.

• The SHE Family Night is one of the main annual events of the company and was organised this year in Ramadan with the Theme “The future of Safety”. This event was held at the Gulf Hotel with the intent to motivate and promote awareness amongst employees and their families of safety concerns and enhance a culture of responsible care both at home and in the workplace. A ‘drawings and essay writing competition’ was organised before the event, in order to develop and further enhance creativity and SHE awareness within the large number of talented children and wives of the employees and SHE awareness within the large number of talented children of the employees.

• Replacement of existing conventional lights in process areas, non-process areas, buildings and street lights with energy efficient LEDs has been ongoing since 2013. In 2019 2312 LED light fittings were installed, with an energy saving of 365.97 MWH/year and a total reduction in carbon emissions by 200 tons per year.

• As part of Post COP 21 requirements; GPIC’s Climate Change Committee used IPCC GHG Inventory software 2006 and issued its fourth GHG Inventory Report in 2019.

• GPIC in cooperation with UN Environment and Ministry of Education continued with the Green Wave initiative that was launched in 2015. Through this programme we sponsor and facilitate the planting of local trees at public schools, in order to promote biodiversity awareness and encourage environmental stewardship. At each school, the students plant saplings, such as; pomegranate and olive. Since the launch of the programme in 2015, 90 schools have benefited from the programme with the distribution of 3,600 sapling trees in total.

• To expand further green areas within GPIC a new Neem Tree Garden was inaugurated in 2019. This garden has 150 Neem Trees, famous for its medicinal benefits.

• To date we have recycled 150 tons of plastic, paper, metal cans and cardboard. Additional waste recycling points were introduced in employees car park and the GPIC Club. During 2019 through an effective waste recycling programme 17 tons of waste was recycled.

• Publicising environmental awareness amongst future generations progressed as planned. Our Engineers presented a number of environmental lectures in both public and private schools. The total number of students benefiting from this programme is over 42,000 since its inception in 2001. From 2015, Responsible Care Awareness is also being imparted in addition to Environmental Awareness.

• For the fifteenth consecutive academic year, GPIC sponsored the Ministry of Education/GPIC Environmental Research Programme for the GPIC Environment Award for secondary school students.

• As part of the Health Awareness programme GPIC’s Medical Center arranged several lectures to increase the employees’ health awareness on subjects like Breast cancer, Diabetes, Cupping Therapy etc. Additionally, various health campaigns took place such as; GPIC Smoke-Free Campaign, Beat the Heat Campaign and Obesity Management Programme.

• More than 320 employees were screened at GPIC Medical Centre as part of the periodic medical examination during 2019.

• As part of corporate social responsibility more than 181 GPIC employees donated 141 units of blood during 2019.

• Being a Responsible Care (RC) Company, GPIC actively participated in all the planned RC related initiatives, Committees, Conferences and Workshops spearheaded by GPCA. Additionally RC metrics were reported as planned.

• In 2019 advanced Security Training on ISPS, Maritime Security, Physical Security and Asset Protection was conducted.

• GPIC continued to chair the Bahrain Chapter of ASIS (American Society of Industrial Safety).