The safety of our employees, facilities, and the communities where we operate and sell is a priority that is rooted in our Live Safely value and is a core part of how our teams around the world live and work every day. To support farmers and the agricultural industry, we need to provide products in a safe and sustainable manner. For us, that means protecting the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families, as well as our value chain partners and supplemental workforce.
We are working to fulfill our safety commitments by driving elimination of severe incidents and implementing a framework to share expertise and information, to improve safety performance for our customers and the broader agriculture industry.
EHS&S governance
The Governance and Compliance Committee of the Board of Directors oversees enterprise EHS&S risks and periodically reviews metrics to track performance and focus improvement efforts. This includes reviewing and providing input to the management team regarding current and emerging issues and reporting periodically to the Board on EHS&S as well as distribution safety and security, quality, product, regulatory, compliance, and stewardship matters affecting the Company. Our Supplier Code of Conduct reinforces EHS&S with our upstream and downstream business partners, including environmental systems and reporting.
Emergency planning and response
Emergencies can strike suddenly, whether an act of nature like a hurricane, flood, or earthquake, or as a result of an operational malfunction. Through the Responsible Care initiative, companies belonging to the American Chemistry Council (ACC) commit to prepare for emergency situations that can affect the safety and stability of facilities and surrounding communities. The Responsible Care® management system includes emergency planning requirements based on potential risks a facility might face. Individual facility risks may vary, based on the facility’s location (e.g. near a floodplain), time of year (e.g. hurricane season), the types of chemicals used and produced at the facility, and requirements for preparedness plans in compliance with requirements from local, state, and national authorities.
Responsible Care companies:
- Identify, assess, and prioritize potential facility operational risk to understand what potential hazards might arise from their operations, how those hazards may translate into potential risks, and how to manage those risks
- Establish and maintain procedures to prepare for and respond to accidents and emergency situations that may occur, and help prevent or mitigate associated impacts
- Periodically test their emergency response procedures, train employees about the safety obligations for their specific jobs at the facility, and work closely to coordinate their emergency preparedness plans with local, state, and national authorities
Process safety management (PSM)
We are committed to the safety of our employees, contractors, and the community. We recognize that process safety is a critical component of our operations and is essential to achieving our business objectives. To this end, we have developed a PSM system that is based on the Center for Chemical Process Safety Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety. The program is compliant with the ACC Responsible Care® Process Safety Code and is in alignment with the Corteva EHS&S Live Safely commitment statement.
Our PSM system is designed to identify, evaluate, and manage the hazards associated with our processes. It also provides necessary controls to minimize process safety incidents from occurring and reduce the negative impacts of such incidents that do occur.
