Our Approach and Performance

A culture of safety and stewardship permeates everything we do because environment, health, safety, and security (EHSS) is as much of a core value to SABIC as business success.

Our EHSS has improved through a culture of excellence and employee empowerment, supported by five key functions: Health, Safety, and the Environment; Security; Process Risk Management; Product Stewardship; and Global Assurance. These teams strengthen EHSS around the world.

2020 Highlights

• 26% decrease in EHSS rate
• Launched Safer Chemistry program to replace chemicals of concern with those of a smaller hazard footprint
• Rolled out cyber-security training on phishing schemes
• Launched EHSS Maturity using KPIs to generate Maturity Indexes
• Led crisis management of COVID-19 with comprehensive safety and risk-control measures

SABIC strives to create a culture of environmental and human health, safety, and security (EHSS) stewardship in everything we do. In 2020, SABIC responded quickly to the COVID-19 crisis, putting the health and safety of our employees and their environments first. We also continued to address and improve our EHSS competencies, improve proactive emission-monitoring, and build on our Safety, Security, Health and Environmental Management Standards (SHEMS), including through a new Safer Chemicals pillar to our Product Stewardship framework.

EHSS Governance & Operating Rhythm

Our EHSS Executive Council—which includes SABIC’s CEO, executive vice presidents, EHSS functional leaders, and legal team members—meets biannually to monitor performance, establish goals, and review overall strategy. The Council also includes site, functional, and manufacturing-affiliate leaders who meet quarterly to coordinate the strategies, programs, and policies. Our Product Stewardship Council shares best practices and addresses EHSS risks throughout our product portfolio.

2020 Initiative

SABIC continued to hone our EHSS focus in 2020, including through an EHSS Culture Survey that reached more than 16,730 employees. Each site is working on an action plan to make improvements in the areas identified in the survey. To reduce costs and improve efficiencies, we established a long-term contract for our industrial hygiene services, and we improved our Third-Party EHSS Management Qualification process by using the SABIC Supplier Lifecycle Management (SLM) system to identify and manage our materials and service providers. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we used our Maintenance, Shutdown, and Turnaround Guidance to keep our equipment and spaces clean and our employees and contractors safe.