This year, we introduced our Zero Harm safety commitment, which goes beyond avoiding incidents and injuries. Zero Harm is about each employee going home better than they arrived at work. Zero Harm is a positive mindset and awareness of safety that runs through every aspect of our work. In conjunction with Zero Harm, we have aligned our regions and shifted toward a global management approach to safety in an effort to become one Greif. We introduced new trainings and expanded existing trainings available globally. In 2021, we delivered 16.4 hours of safety training per production colleague. We also debuted “Target Zero,” a quarterly colleague newsletter that communicates safety-related news, best practices and advice to our colleagues while aggregating updates and highlights from our facilities around the world.

In 2021 we introduced a standardized training calendar in North America. We update the training calendar regularly to ensure every plant is receiving the same training each month. We also utilize our Greif QS in all our plants to standardize the way we log and report incidents. This allows us to run incident analyses to identify trends and work to mitigate recognized risks.

In 2021 we introduced a standardized training calendar in North America. We update the training calendar regularly to ensure every plant is receiving the same training each month. We also utilize our Greif QS in all our plants to standardize the way we log and report incidents. This allows us to run incident analyses to identify trends and work to mitigate recognized risks.

Our annual safety leadership training helps our leaders establish a stronger safety performance culture and encourage all colleagues to be accountable and keep themselves and others safe. The training was available to GIP professionals and plant managers, with plans to expand the training to the colleague level next year. We are currently in the process of offering our trainings in 20 languages to make them accessible to as many colleagues as possible. The leadership training provides our safety leaders with the knowledge and resources to reinforce the importance of safety to colleagues, address safety issues and be alert to risks and successfully facilitate meaningful dialogue through our Commitment-Based Safety / Quality (CBS/Q) program. The CBS/Q program highlights the value of daily safety.

In September 2021, we held our annual Safety Week, attended by the Executive Leadership Team and external speakers. Colleagues from facilities, offices and remote working arrangements globally, took part in safety-related exercises. During Safety Week, we reinforced colleagues’ understanding of safety basics, provided opportunities to share best practices and strengthened our approach to safety leadership. We also held our Safety Leadership Conference, attended by 367 of our most impactful leaders where we encouraged leaders to promote a safety culture emphasizing Zero Harm.

At the start of each day or shift, teams begin with a 15-minute discussion around safety and quality, encouraging a safety and quality culture within the work teams. The meetings provide a daily opportunity for colleagues to talk openly about any concerns and creates an environment where proactive safety behaviors are valued. Teams identify potential safety hazards within their job function, articulate and rank their safety performance and make pledges to take responsibility for their actions.

Colleagues participate in TAKE2, a safety management process to encourage colleagues to “take two minutes” to think about the non-routine task, personal actions, equipment and potential hazards involved when performing a task that is not part of their normal workday. Colleagues then complete and sign a TAKE2 analysis. TAKE2 allows colleagues to stop and ensure they are thinking of not only their own safety, but also the safety of their colleagues. The last step involves a lead person, supervisor or manager, signing the TAKE2 analysis before the colleague is allowed to begin the non-routine task. Through this program, we also place an increased focus on safety risks our colleagues may face at home that are relevant to the workplace, and vice versa.

We continue to utilize a nurse hotline service, to streamline our colleague’s access to medical care and guidance. When an incident happens at any facility in North America, a team member calls the nurse hotline to discuss the severity of the injury and obtain advice as to whether the individual should seek further treatment. If colleagues ever request to see a doctor, we take them to visit a doctor immediately.

Our Global Safety Scorecard and visual standards help promote consistent safety metrics globally. The Scorecard standardizes metrics within each business unit to ensure we are evaluating safety similarly across all our operations, but considers business- and facility-specific safety risks that drive global metrics.

To promote a continuous focus on safety, Paper Packaging & Services (PPS) facilities hold weekly safety calls attended by all General Managers, senior leadership and other select colleagues from each facility. During the calls, each facility is responsible for reviewing any incidents that have occurred over the past week and there is rotating responsibility to share at least one best practice for promoting safety with the group. These calls have led to the adoption of innovative safety risk reduction and elimination solutions in every operation. The Mill Group also began a series of learning discussions in 2020 centered on Human Operational Performance, to better understand how factors such as human error can impact safety.

Sites within PPS have placed increased focus on pedestrian and mobile equipment interaction, lockout-tagout, machine guarding, job safety analysis and risk and hazard recognition as part of our continued efforts to embed a safety culture across all Greif facilities. We are also proud to continue some innovative safety practices from Caraustar’s legacy safety programs. For example, Caraustar had established a program across a number of sites that provides our colleagues with access to an athletic trainer to help them prevent and recover from both non-work-related and work-related injuries that may result from the physical demands of the job and at home. This program is currently in use at nearly half our mills and several select PPS facilities. In late 2020, PPS began piloting a virtual Athletic Trainer program to prevent ergonomic injury and illnesses. We started with smaller facilities and plan to expand its use over time. We currently have 11 sites using onsite Athletic trainers and 10 sites using virtual Athletic Trainers. We plan to expand this program to additional sites in 2022. The Industrial Products Group adopted an innovative solution that utilizes technology to analyze standard activities to identify ergonomic risks and modify workstation configurations and practices to eliminate conditions that can contribute to injury.

Our global health and safety efforts were more important than ever as we carefully worked to ensure the health and safety of our colleagues during the COVID-19 pandemic. At Greif, we provide critical and essential goods manufacturing and distribution, packaging and protecting goods and materials that serve the greater needs of communities around the world. Given our position as an essential business, we continued to operate throughout the pandemic across our global portfolio by adhering to local, state and national regulations in more than 40 countries. To ensure colleague safety in response to COVID-19, we established a global task force and multiple regional task forces, which meet at least weekly and more often as needed. Our task forces, and management at all levels, continuously monitor the impact of COVID-19 on our colleagues, communities and business continuity. In addition, we continued practicing the health and safety measures implemented in 2020 and 2021 including: