International Paper Promoting Employee Well-Being

International Paper – We are dedicated to achieving a goal of zero serious injuries among employees and contractors. Our safety target, which we reiterated in our Vision 2030 goals, is non-negotiable, and it is a shared responsibility: we watch out for one another to ensure that everyone gets home safely every day.

Our LIFE (Life-changing Injury and Fatality Elimination) programme engages employees and fosters a learning culture in order to achieve an injury-free workplace. Our goal is to eliminate serious injuries and reduce all injuries to zero by focusing on five key areas of workplace risk: slips, trips, and falls; machine safeguarding; harmful substance exposure; motorised equipment accidents; and driver safety.

Our global operations provide quarterly updates to all employees, including our senior leadership team, on safety leading indicators. We can use this data to assess the effectiveness of our health and safety initiatives and allocate resources to areas of safety that require improvement. Despite ongoing distractions caused by the global pandemic, International Paper continued actions tracked against the safety leading indicators, such as contact coordinator training and safe work observations, in 2021 to maintain LIFE performance year over year.

International Paper

In 2021, 94% of our sites were operational without a serious injury, highlighting the positive impact of our programmes. Still, we are committed to finding safe ways to practise safety leadership, to ensuring layers of protection, and to taking the necessary steps to keep ourselves and each other safe.

Leadership in safety

Our safety culture reflects our belief that every employee, regardless of role, is a safety leader. This means that each of us is responsible for:

Keep an active safety mindset.

Prepare for, identify, and eliminate hazards.

In dangerous situations, intervene.

Contribute to a culture of learning in which we learn from events and near misses.

Layers of protection – devices, systems, and actions that work together to reduce the likelihood and severity of an unsafe event in our workplace – must be integrated.

Accept responsibility and hold yourself accountable.

In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic posed new global health and economic challenges. Our dedication to keeping our employees safe, meeting the critical needs of our communities, and providing essential products to our customers has never wavered. Among our initiatives were:

Whenever possible, on-site vaccination clinics are provided, as well as information on community clinics.

Employee education materials explaining the benefits of vaccination and links to where they can learn more

COVID-19 facts and myths will be addressed in video interviews with subject matter experts, with topics including herd immunity and vaccine development.

Pandemic preparedness plans are still being implemented, including processes and procedures for proper personal protective equipment requirements, social distancing, and enhanced cleaning.