The Group’s safety performance in all activities further improved in 2010. No fatalities or serious incidents were recorded for a second consecutive year regarding both direct and indirect employees. The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) of direct employees was reduced by 12%, from 2.64 in 2009 to 2.33 in 2010.

Safety performance showed an overall improvement in most regions where we operate; however there were exceptions, proving that local cultures, traditions and attitudes are significant factors in meeting Group targets and objectives.

The successful completion of a major initiative to change safety culture launched in 2008 and implemented in collaboration with world class safety consultants, is reflected in a marked improvement of the safety performance of operations in Southeast Europe.

Egypt continued its excellent safety track record with no Lost Time Injury, while in Greece LTIFR was reduced from 2.78 in 2009 to 1.75 in 2010.

The completion of the Antea greenfield cement plant in Albania has been a major safety performance achievement. It involved a large number of contractor employees with no serious accident after 4.5 million actual working hours.

TITAN is benchmarking safety performance in terms of LTIFR with Cement Sustainability Initiative peers and has set a target to be in CSI’s top quartile by 2015. This benchmarking is going to include other critical relevant KPI’s like fatalities and contractors’ safety performance.

Responsibility for steering the Group to achieve its goals lies with the Group Health and Safety Council that meets on a quarterly basis and is chaired by TITAN’s Managing Director.

Health and safety is clearly a line responsibility, effectively cascading from the CEO and the regional directors to the shop floor of all our operations. In major locations, safety committees are in place and all employees are encouraged to put forward proposals for safety improvements. A TITAN Group safety award has been established to recognize outstanding efforts in meeting safety goals.

Learning from incidents is critical for continuous self-improvement. All serious incidents are investigated and the findings are submitted to the Health and Safety Council, ensuring proper analysis of the root causes and further dissemination of lessons learnt to all locations, in order to prevent recurrence.

The number of incidents that might have led to a lost time injury (near misses) are also considered as a leading safety indicator, as is the percentage of these near misses that are investigated so as to take corrective actions. In 2010 we had a considerable increase in the reporting of near misses: 1,475 vs 600 in 2009. A very high percentage (89%) of reported incidents were investigated and corrective action was taken.

Seeking external assessment and verification of safety performance, internal Group safety reviews are carried out each year. By the end of 2010, 60% of our cement plants and associated quarries had been reviewed. This has helped to identify and address areas in need of improvement, but also to assess practices per location and adopt the best ones at Group level.

Training at all hierarchical levels for direct as well as indirect employees is essential to develop and maintain a safety culture. In 2010, more than 88,000 training man-hours were implemented for direct employees and another 30,000 training man-hours for indirect employees. This increase is also related to new intensive courses on road safety launched last year.

Contractor safety management is a special challenge. Clearly we need to insist on changing accident prevention attitudes. In 2010 the implementation of the new guidelines proposed by Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) on managing contractor and road safety started and it will be completed by 2015. Some of the recommendations are already standard practices for TITAN contractor management: e.g. training of the contractors prior to commencing the task and appraisal of contractors on their safety performance. In addition, as a result of a stakeholder forum held in Greece, TITAN joined efforts with other industries, on an extensive safety training program directed to contractors’ crew managers and owners of small and medium size companies (see Suppliers).