Idemitsu’s policy for ensuring safety is (1) to ensure the safety of people as our highest priority; and (2) to reduce and eliminate risks through the appropriate allocation of management resources and the maintenance and improvement of facilities, processes and work mechanisms with the aim of eliminating accidents and injuries while also (3) making efforts to cultivate a safety-oriented culture. Ensuring safety based on this policy hinges on management efforts. We also recognize the realization of a zero accident/disaster status as the foremost goal to be accomplished through these endeavors. Based on this recognition, we have established the following specific policies clarifying that ensuring safety is of utmost importance and must be prioritized in the course of our judgements, no matter the type of task or action involved, throughout all aspects of business activities, including production, logistics, sales, and research and development.
We have positioned “Safety, Health and the Environment” as a management foundation and have established the Safety & Environmental Protection Headquarters to promote initiatives to secure and preserve this foundation. Members of the headquarters consist of the General Manager and co-head of the Safety & Environmental Protection Headquarters, general managers of departments in charge of supervising business sites and other managers who are appointed by the General Manager, in addition to the secretariat. The executive in charge of safety and environment (Director) is appointed by the President and Representative Director to serve as the General Manager of the Safety & Environmental Protection Headquarters, overseeing the headquarters as the individual bearing the highest responsibility regarding safety, health, and the environment. Safety, Environment (HSSE) & Quality Assurance Department serves as the secretariat.
The role of the headquarters is (1) to determine the medium-term management plan, the annual basic policies, and priority issues associated with health, safety, security and the environment (HSSE), (2) to assess and evaluate performance through audits, (3) to maintain, review, and improve the Safety Management System and the Environmental Management System, and (4) to instruct all departments and major affiliated companies on how to secure the management resources necessary to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve these Management Systems.
As a general rule, the Safety & Environmental Protection Headquarters Meeting is held once a year in December to confirm the progress of HSSE activities and decide on our group’s annual basic policies for the next fiscal year.
Each department appoints a manager in charge of safety and the environment to manage and promote the overall HSSE activities of the department, including those of the business sites under its management.
In line with annual basic policies and priority issues determined by the headquarters, each department is autonomously engaged in HSSE activities by employing a PDCA cycle.
In addition, in order to confirm and promote the HSSE activities of each department, the General Manager of the Safety & Environmental Protection Headquarters or other top management representative conducts Safety and Environment related instructions or Safety patrols by visiting business sites. The secretariat of the headquarters also conducts Safety and Environmental audits at business sites. In particular, at our company’s refineries and complexes, the General Manager of the Safety & Environmental Protection Headquarters conducts Safety and Environment related instruction and Safety patrol once a year, while the secretariat conducts Safety and Environmental audit on an annual basis.
At business sites other than those named above, Safety and Environmental audits are carried out once every three years in principle. Should safety- and/or environment-related issues requiring improvement be discovered by audits, the secretariat will conduct follow-up monitoring on each case and oversee the entire process from the planning of countermeasures to the completion of their implementation.
Furthermore, in order to prevent serious accidents at our business sites, we have established the Safety & Security Advisory Committee, whose membership includes external experts, as an advisory body to the Board of Directors or the President and Representative Director, with the aim of establishing more effective safety and safety assurance measures.
| Number of business sites subject to audits | 22 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total number of issues commented on via audits | 411 | |
| Major nonconformity | 3 | |
| Minor nonconformity | 50 | |