Policies for health and safety, top priorities for the group

Health policy

The AREVA group’s Health policy seeks to protect the health of its employees, subcontractor personnel and the communities around its sites. The policy contains three priority objectives:

• help to continuously improve the health of employees and subcontractors, 
• promote public health programs in countries in which it operates,
• take action to improve working conditions.

To achieve these objectives, the group’s Medical team works closely with the environmental specialists (particularly on subjects related to chemical risk prevention), with the Human Resources Department, and with the Protection of Assets and Personnel Department (particularly concerning health risks related to mobility).

It acts in the following fields:

• industrial hygiene, by establishing the group’s standards and ensuring that they are applied (biological hazards, hazardous chemicals, occupational health section of the REACH directive); 
• research and innovation, by participating in epidemiological and radio-toxicological research programs.

It provides support to the group’s entities, in particular to:

• monitor adoption of occupational health related provisions;
• assess the risks related to expatriation and to overseas operations;
• advise on responses to health crises;
• coordinate activities connected with the human resources policy.

Occupational safety policy

The goal of zero accidents translates into prevention activities and a continuous improvement initiative. Underpinning the occupational safety policy are four fundamental commitments:

• define a clear and specific occupational safety organization,
• make occupational safety an integral part of the business,
• establish an accident prevention program and a continuous improvement initiative,
• formalize an occupational safety management system.

The policy calls for each AREVA entity to set goals for performance improvement in this area. The intermediate targets are an accident frequency rate of less than 3 group-wide in 2010, and an accident severity rate of less than 0.15 in 2010. These targets have already been met and exceeded, with a frequency rate of 2.05 in 2009 and a severity rate of 0.08. 

The policy is in the process of being updated to define new intermediate targets and other actions to reduce the number of accidents even further.