Sustainability
Safety
At Gurit, safety is our top priority, including accident prevention, chemical safety, and health protection for employees and customers. Achieving these goals requires commitment across all levels of the organization. Each year, we set new safety targets and reinforce our commitment to employees, subcontractors, external workers, customers, and partners.
Our comprehensive Health and Safety Management System is tailored to meet global standards and adapted to local health and safety regulations. This ensures all Gurit employees, contractors, and onsite external workers operate within safe and compliant frameworks.
Safety Management
Safety Pyramid
We utilize the Safety Pyramid to reduce workplace incidents. This model begins with proactively identifying hazards and risks. Regular workplace assessments and lost-time injury data analyses help us prevent minor injuries and reduce the likelihood of severe incidents.
By embedding hazard awareness into daily routines, the Safety Pyramid supports a culture of prevention, aiming to minimize near-misses and serious injuries.
More detailed information can be found in the Social chapter of the latest Sustainably Report.
Incident Investigation and Reporting
Our Incident Investigation & Reporting Standard guides a thorough, 8-step approach to incident analysis. Annual training for managers focuses on practical, awareness-driven investigations to reinforce a safety culture at every level.
Safety Walk Standard
The Safety Walk Standard promotes Safety First behaviors at all production sites. Employees are trained to make observations that are recorded and tracked monthly to support continuous improvement and a strong safety culture.
WordLex
We use WordLex at Gurit, a tool to support global legal compliance by monitoring regulatory changes and aligning processes and policies accordingly. Tailored to each site’s location and operational model, we are able to manage deviations, track corrective actions, and streamline compliance efforts, reducing the workload and mitigating risks of non-compliance and related consequences.
Safety First Platform
The Safety First platform centralizes health and safety data from all Gurit sites, allowing monthly KPI and incident reporting with direct workforce involvement. The platform also provides training resources, supplemented by courses on our Learning Management System (LMS) for all employees with access.
ISO Certifications
We are actively working towards the following certifications to uphold high standards:
• ISO 9001 Quality Management
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management
• ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety
Chemical Safety Management
Chemicals throughout Gurit facilities must be continually evaluated and managed to ensure our employee and customer safety. We have a Hazardous Chemicals Management Policy and a Chemical Safety Management System to help us do this. This allows us to understand the chemicals used at Gurit, identify areas where the most harmful chemicals are used and target their elimination.
Chemicals at our site
We monitor the safety and regulatory landscape of chemicals not only used within our products but also in general use across our sites. We use the platform GoldFFX to help us assess chemical risks according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) model, looking at the latest hazard profile and exposure risk, as well as the impact on these if we were to make changes.
Chemicals in our products
Following a GoldFFX assessment, and to help target products for reformulation, each finished product Gurit manufactures receives an internally generated High Priority Chemical (HPC) score. The scoring system aims to identify those products not only with SVHCs present but also with high hazards. The system takes into consideration not only regulatory restrictive hazard classifications, but also those chemicals that may have unacceptable human and environmental impacts, such as Persistent Bio accumulative Toxicants (PBTs) and Endocrine Disruptors.
Please visit our Chemical Safety Management page in our latest Sustainability Report for more information.
Collaborating for Better Outcomes – employees and customers
Employee engagement
Gurit’s Health & Safety Training Roadmap and Safety First awareness program provide targeted training for employees and contractors, including local-language sessions.
We prioritize both physical and mental well-being, sharing best practices, hosting workshops, and offering professional support when needed.
Regular safety updates are shared via newsletters, briefings, Gurit TV screens, online portals, and townhalls to keep safety top of mind.
Proactive approach to customer health & safety
Although Gurit endeavors to remove the most harmful chemicals from its products, due to the nature of the chemicals used, some hazards are unavoidable. To ensure effective communication around the safe use of such products, we have several systems in place:
1. SAFETY DATA SHEETS
Customers receive product Safety Data Sheets (“SDS”) electronically through an automated delivery system linked to the ERP ordering process. They therefore have time to plan for safe and effective handling and storage before the product arrives on site. Updated documents are distributed by the same automated system and each customer receives a unique login to the online system where they can retrieve the latest copies of their Gurit product SDSs.
2. WEBSITE
The Gurit website has a section devoted to handling our products in a safe manner. Here customers can view general guidelines on handling formulated, prepreg and core products as well as a direct link to request SDS by email. For information on relevant legislation and Gurit’s current Hazardous Chemicals Management Policy please visit www.gurit.com/product-stewardship
3. CHEMICAL SAFETY INCIDENT REPORTING
All data and information about chemical safety incidents reported by our customers are collated and monitored on our Safety First platform. In this way, we can monitor the common issues facing our customers and we can work towards managing these in new product developments. Chemical exposure incident information is collated from the following sources:
- Calls to the Gurit’s third party chemical emergency response line (NCEC).
- Direct contact from customers experiencing difficulties (i.e. email to tech support, customer support or the regulatory email address).
- Direct contact from official bodies such as medical professionals or poison centres to the SDS contact.
- Confidentiality of individuals is maintained as the data is gathered to monitor general trends in exposure incidents rather than specific details.