Health and Safety
At Resolute Forest Products, safety is a top priority, linked to every part of our business.
We are committed to providing our employees and contractors with safe work environments in addition to complying with the applicable legal requirements at each site. We foster continuous improvement by establishing world-class safety and health standards at each operation, setting annual and long-term targets, and measuring our safety performance.
The impact of health and safety risks can be internal to the company (affecting the well-being of employees and contractors, or causing delays in the manufacturing process, for example) or external (including broader community consequences).
Our proactive approach to safety has given rise to a number of innovations and contributed to our leadership position in the industry, as described in the Innovations and Awards section.
Resolute’s Safety Principles
- Active management commitment and employee involvement are key to ensuring a safe, injury-free workplace.
- Each task can be performed without injury.
- Operating without injuries is the foundation of operational excellence.
- Safety and health are core values linked to every part of our business.
Our ultimate goal: zero workplace incidents, zero injuries. To learn more, read Resolute's Health and Safety Policy Statement.
Safety Management System
Starting in 2007, Resolute undertook a company-wide initiative to move from being reactive to the proactive management of health and safety issues. The goal is to examine the factors that could result in an incident and resolve those using leading indicators before an incident actually occurs.
Our approach to injury prevention is one that combines leadership from the company with the individual responsibility of our employees. This approach is supported by an occupational health and safety management system (SMS) that includes training and awareness, audits and monitoring, as well as employee engagement through our three proactive safety pillars at all our operations. Our employees receive specific training on safety policies and procedures not only to ensure compliance with these requirements, but also to be certain that they clearly understand the safety expectations for performing their jobs.
Our SMS is comprised of three pillars that drive our everyday focus on health and safety across our operations:
- One-on-one safety commitment discussions that allow us to reinforce our expectations that our employees will work safely.
- Hazard recognition that is performed prior to undertaking any tasks, allowing employees to evaluate and control safety-related risks, and to halt a task when one of Resolute’s 7 Prevention Reflexes is triggered, which reduces the potential for injury.
- Near-miss reporting that engages employees in our health and safety processes and provides site management teams with risk recognition data that we use to maintain the daily proactive mindset that prevents injuries.
Resolute’s SMS is closely aligned with internationally recognized best practices from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and centered on the belief that operational excellence is based on a zero-injury approach.
Safety Risk Audits
As safety is a priority at all levels of the company, senior management reviews policies on an annual basis and requires regular audits of each operation to ensure compliance with Resolute’s SMS. The audits, including verifying 12 critical health and safety standards, are conducted over a three-year cycle. Most notably, they include detailed questionnaires that measure the compliance of the system’s three pillars as well as the rules and control measures related to the 12 critical standards. Members of the management team are required to participate in these audits and are responsible for completing any corrective actions identified in the gap analysis performed against our corporate health and safety policies and standards.
Building Safer Workplaces with Alcumus Cognibox
In 2014, Resolute began using a new online tool called Alcumus Cognibox to track and evaluate contractor compliance with our stringent insurance, safety, environmental, regulatory and administrative standards.
This secure online management platform allows contractors to determine instantly whether they are eligible to work for Resolute and what kinds of processes and training they may need in order to achieve compliance.
By implementing the Alcumus Cognibox system across the entire organization, we have improved contractor accountability. For more information, visit the Alcumus Cognibox website or read our related blog post.
Safety
Material Data Sheets
The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration updated its Hazard Communication Standard in March 2012. It included, for the first time, dust, which can be generated from the downstream transformation of market pulp, paper and wood products, as a combustible or health dust hazard. As a result of this update, we are required to communicate this information to our customers with a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) and label explaining the potential hazards associated with potential downstream transformation for each product.
The pulp, paper, tissue and wood products we sell remain non-hazardous in the form they leave our operations. The U.S. Department of Labor’s OSHA update simply requires that we advise of potential hazards that may arise as a result of downstream activities like cutting or grinding.
The most current Safety Data Sheets for our various products are available below. For customer requests, please contact your sales or customer service representative. Non-customer inquiries should be directed to [email protected].