Sustainability report 2024
Health and safety
Next: Our people and human rights
We achieve the highest standards in health and safety.
Ensuring the health and safety of our employees and communities
Health and safety are core values and part of everything we do.
Our global Health and Safety (H&S) program fosters a collaborative culture that has achieved accountability on all levels. We are committed to a preventive and holistic approach to ensure the well-being of our employees, clients, suppliers, and contractors.
The ultimate accountability for leading effective implementation of our H&S policy resides with our CEO, our senior leaders, and associates. Our Manifesto value of achieving no harm is reinforced in our Health and Safety Policy.
Safety culture
We ensure continual improvement and a sustainable safety culture by:
- Aligning our approach and systems to internationally recognized frameworks such as ISO 45001
- Proactively monitoring and reporting all unsafe behavior and conditions in our work environments
- Holding our leadership teams accountable to lead by example
- Analyzing and using all information collected to inform and improve.
“With accountable and involved leadership, a resilient safety culture is sustainable.”
— Bertie Brits, Global Director, Health and Safety
We are involved in projects throughout the world and recognize the importance of health and safety to our employees, clients, and contractors. Community expectations and cultural values are also important considerations in our approach. Particular attention is given to the prevention of all incidents and events that could affect the health and safety of personnel, off-site communities, and the environment.
We track our global staff and contractor total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) as a key lagging metric and our global lost-time incident frequency rate (LTIFR). Over the past three years, our employee TRIFR maintains an enviable rate of 0.09 and our LTIFR of 0.01.
An advocate for proactive safety culture on site
David was the project site manager for the Freeport Manyar Refinery project, which won the Hatch Construction Management Award in 2024. The award recognizes the team that best exhibits the ability to foster on-site collaboration on signature construction projects.
“I was proud to be part of such an exceptional team,” shared David. “The project showcased our ability to integrate with clients and provide a global response while highlighting our expertise in global mobilization.”
Logged more than 10 million hours without a lost-time incident.
The US$662-million greenfield project was conducted at the Java Integrated Industrial and Port Estate in the regency of Gresik, East Java, Indonesia. Our initial scope was expanded to include engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) for the smelting facility, which produces 99.99% pure gold bars, silver, platinum group metals, tellurium, selenium, and lead. We then formed a global, integrated team of owner’s engineer, EPCM, and contractors and oversaw communication sessions to help establish single-team accountability.
David’s health and safety contributions were key to the project’s success. He advocated for weekly management safety walks, safety training and corrective action, and much more. Overall, the project logged more than 10 million hours without a lost-time incident.
Proactively recording safety observations, a visibly felt form of leadership
Our global Visible Felt Leadership (VFL) program uses ROAM, a mobile and desktop app that allows our staff and site workers to proactively record and share safety observations and photos. In 2024, 58% of all staff submitted at least four observations per month. Observations are analyzed to identify trends and, ultimately, to increase safety.
Our goal is to continually increase participation in this program every year.
| Year | Numbers of observations |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 79,922 |
| 2021 | 191,553 |
| 2022 | 264,293 |
| 2023 | 404,489 |
| 2024 | 470,573 |
Keen safety observer and ROAM contributor
Karina is serious about safety! Always on the lookout for ROAM observations. In 2024, Karina recorded 261 ROAM observations.
“Safety is just part of who I am,” said Karina, who has worked at Hatch for a decade. “I am a volunteer firefighter with 27 years of service, and I worked for two large mining companies before coming to Hatch, so I’m very safety conscious.”
Recorded 261 ROAM observations.
“I have the ROAM app on my phone, and I’ve developed the habit of registering situations that I see, whether they are safe or unsafe. For example, if I find the bathroom floor wet—it’s dangerous because someone might slip. If I can’t find the person responsible for cleaning it up, I do it myself and register an observation.”
“Sometimes, I see my co-workers going out for a walk after lunch, and some of them wear hats to protect themselves from solar radiation, which is very strong in the summer. I congratulate them and encourage others to adopt this behavior, considering it a positive practice to record in ROAM.”
“I think the app is a very good tool; it creates a culture of safety in the office, in public spaces, and at home. Our daily lives are filled with situations that we can identify as substandard or as positive acts or conditions, which we can document as safety observations."
Working Together Safely forums
Our annual Working Together Safely (WTS) Forum began in 2015 as a single event in Toronto, Canada, to address the needs of our clients. The program has since been expanded globally across all our regions (Canada, the United States, South America, South Africa, Australia, and Europe).
The forums address a wide array of important issues, including employee well-being, safety innovations, physical and mental health and self-awareness, psychological safety, and the importance of safety in the workplace.
Explore our various topics and events over the years:
- 2024 annual Working Together Safely Forum
- 2023 annual Working Together Safely Forum
- Insights, commitments, and best practices learned WTS in South Africa, Australia, and South America
- Recovery is a weapon: takeaways from 2022 annual Working Together Safely forum
- Hatch hosts virtual annual client Working Together Safely Forum
A safety and engineering feat that set a new standard for the global mining industry—Project Lucy
Safety leadership was the cornerstone of Project Lucy, an innovative tailings storage project for the Goro nickel mine in New Caledonia.
Given that the project was executed within an operational mine, all onboarded companies were required to adhere to a project health, safety, and environment (HSE) plan developed to meet the requirements of our client, Prony Resources New Caledonia, and aligned with applicable laws, rules, and regulations. This plan was available in both French and English.
We collaborated with our contractors to ensure early engagement and verification of the plan. Supervisors received one-on-one training from the HSE manager and were informed of the expectations of the project manager regarding critical activities. These critical activities, which posed potential risks to workers, equipment, and the environment, included seasonal weather events like cyclones.
Contractor onboarding was challenging, partly due to the predominantly local and third-country national workforce, who spoke numerous languages. Our project team was comprised of 10 nationalities who spoke seven languages, which necessitated the development of multilingual safety campaigns and messaging. This approach ensured that safety was a shared responsibility and that messages were readily understood and reinforced in the field.
This project also redefined the future of tailings management by transitioning from traditional wet stacking methods to a sustainable and environmentally friendly dry stacking approach.
Watch the full story on Project Lucy here.
Full report PDF