I.M. Skaugen recognizes that, as a business, everything that we do has an impact on people – both within and outside the company. Our strategic objectives on corporate responsibility are to guide our operations so that social, environmental and ethical considerations are embedded into our business.
Our aim is always to make all our employees proud to be working at I.M.Skaugen and to demonstrate the highest levels of integrity and a responsible business management. We always strive to achieve continuous improvement in our operations in all areas that affect our customers, the physical environment and society as a whole through measurement, monitoring and review of our performance and by committing ourselves to continued excellence.
Nowhere is this more evident, than in the work of our Safety, Health, Environment and Quality management team. They have a pro-active approach to the safety, health and environmental requirements laid down by regulations and our own company policies. Without adherence to these standards, commercial and operational success is not possible.
Safety
Safety is the cornerstone of our business. No deviation or short cuts in any safety measures are ever tolerated. Our employees, where 678 are seafarers, worked close to 3.6 mill hours during the year.
In 2007 it was reported 9 lost time injury cases.
The lost time injury frequency (LTIF) for the IM Skaugen SE was in 2007 2.8 per million worked hours. All lost time injuries cases are reported to SHE&Q team and investigated.
All other incidents are also reported to the SHE&Q team and statistics are made.
We experienced on fatal accident amongst the employees of a subcontractor working on our new ships. The accident was unfortunate and revealed serious deficiencies in working practice. A new safety campaign was launched and a Chief Safety Officer was hired to monitor the work practices and safety training at our production places for SMC.
Health
The working environment throughout the Group's companies is considered satisfactory. The Group is measuring the absence due to illness and have a sick leave statistic on 1.6 per cent which is considered as good (0.9 per cent in 2006).
Environment
There were not reported any oil, bunker or chemical spills to the oceans in 2007. That is in accordance to our targets and as highlighted in the overall company policy.
In 2007 we continued the work towards implementation of the ISO 14001 standard for our ship based gas transportation activities, an activity to further proof of our strong commitments to the protection of our environment.
Our aim is to reduce the waste from our activities through efficient recycling and continuous improvement of the management of our resources.
Our guiding principle is that accidents and environmental harm can be prevented. That is why continuous improvement and prevention of pollution is an inherent part of all areas of our activities. We will continuously evaluate the environmental risk factor of our operations in order to develop plans for improvements.
Quality
The worldwide ocean transportation activity is 9001:200 certified. Several ISM/ISO 9001:2000 audits have been conducted last year. The results are analyzed and presented to top management on an annual basis.