Corporate Responsibility
Workplace Safety
Rohm and Haas has a long-standing tradition of concern for its people and its communities around the world. In 1998, the company's efforts to continue to improve upon its record of safe operations and environmental stewardship yielded important progress.
Rohm and Haas strives to ensure that its workplaces are among the safest in any industry. In 1998, the company delivered on this important commitment in several ways. Overall, the company's rate of occupational injuries and illnesses fell to 1.2 in 1998, a significant improvement over the company's OII rate of 1.8 for 1997. (The OII rate is an industry standard that calculates the number of injuries and illnesses per 200,000 employee hours worked.) As the nearby safety chart shows, Rohm and Haas's long-term effort to reduce employee injuries has produced wide gains.
That improvement is evident at each of the 37 Rohm and Haas sites that operated without a single injury during the year. In 1998, in fact, 28 of the company's sites completed at least two consecutive years without an OII case. These records demonstrate that it is possible to sustain an injury-free workplace, a goal that Rohm and Haas seeks to attain throughout the company.
Despite Rohm and Haas's strong increases in production volume during recent years, the company has steadily reduced the amount of emissions and other waste generated by its manufacturing operations. Rohm and Haas meets government environmental restrictions in each of the dozens of countries in which it operates. In most cases, the company exceeds the official requirements by a significant margin.
The company's total environmental emissions have declined by 38% between 1993 to 1997, the most recent year for which data are available. Even more impressively, the amount of emissions per pound of product the company manufactured fell by 51%. As the nearby chart shows, the company has achieved reductions in emissions in each region of the world. All of Rohm and Haas's businesses have contributed to this extremely favorable trend, which the company expects to continue well into the future.
Environmental Stewadrship
Environmental emissions at Rohm and Haas production facilities have fallen sharply in each of the most recent years. Emissions per pound of production have fallen by 51% since 1993, far exceeding government environmental regulations.
Each year, many Rohm and Haas sites around the world help their neighboring schools to educate children about the importance of caring for our environment. As part of this effort, the company's largest production facility, in Deer Park, Texas, sponsors an annual art contest for area students. In 1998, First Prize in the Senior High Division was awarded to Tavares Provost, a 12th-grader at J. Frank Dobie High School, in Pasadena, Texas, for the adjacent painting. "In today's world, chemical companies are abundant," Tavares said. "The wildlife and environment could easily fall victim to pollution. But through responsible care, we can live together in a clean atmosphere."
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