Health and safety

Safety is our highest priority

We believe that all injuries can be prevented and our target is zero accidents.

Outokumpu aims to be among the industry leaders in safety with the vision of zero accidents. We focus on building a strong safety culture by establishing common safety principles, sharing good practices and learning from past incidents to create increased awareness.

We believe that strong safety performance correlates with improved quality and operational efficiency. Good health and well-being of our personnel are essential values on their own. In addition, we believe that a healthy and thriving team of professionals is an asset to the company’s success. We want all employees to return home healthy, safe and sound every day. Outokumpu strives consciously toward a company culture where all decisions and activities result from our safety principles, set out below:

  • Safety before volume: safety takes priority over all other activities, including production.
  • Safety starts with me: we are all responsible for our own safety and caring for the safety of our colleagues.
  • No shortcuts: we will follow procedures and evaluate risks before we act.
  • No repeats: we will investigate all incidents and take actions to prevent re-occurrence, anywhere.

The ultimate goal for Outokumpu is to have zero accidents, with an underlying management philosophy to continuously improve our safety practices to ensure that Outokumpu is an industry leader in safety. Significant improvements have been made to allow a step change in safety performance over the last three years. 

Our daily work is guided by common safety principles, standards, guidelines, and our ten Cardinal Safety Rules. Hazard observations and Safety Behavioral Observations (SBOs) are utilized to flag potential risks and unsafe behaviors before they lead to accidents. Lessons from past incidents are shared with other sites in the monthly Safety Call hosted by the CEO.

Strong safety development

Since launching our new safety management principles in 2016, we have reduced our injury frequencies significantly. In 2020, we reached the strongest year on record with a total injury frequency rate of 2.4 (per million working hours).

Outokumpu's safety performance development graph