Responsible Care  [ Return to  American Air Liquide  ]

• Operate our facilities in a manner that protects the environment and the health and safety of our employees and the public. Continually improve their health, safety, environmental, and security performance.
• Provide chemicals that can be manufactured, transported, used and disposed of safely.
• Listen and respond to stakeholder concerns, including those from the public, our employees, our customers, and our suppliers.
• Make health, safety, the environment and resource conservation critical considerations for all new and existing products and processes.
• Publicly report our goals, objectives, and progress on this improvement.
• Work with customers, carriers, suppliers, distributors and contractors to foster the safe use, transport and disposal of chemicals.
• Support education and research on the health, safety and environmental effects of our products and processes.
• Work with others to resolve problems associated with past handling and disposal practices.
• Lead in the development of responsible laws, regulations and standards that safeguard the community, workplace and environment.
• Practice Responsible Care by encouraging and assisting others to adhere to these guiding principles and practices.

Membership in Responsible Care® carries with it the responsibility to implement a Responsible Care® management system, and to have an independent third-party certification of the system to ensure appropriate continuous improvement. Air Liquide USA LLC has successfully met this certification challenge. To find out more about Responsible Care® and its impact, please visit the American Chemistry Council’s Web site.

When it comes to health and safety excellence, the focus in Large Industries is on LIVES. 

What is LIVES?

• Large Industries Vital Employee Safety System
• Systematic approach to workplace health and safety at Large Industries

What are the basic tenants of LIVES?

• Good safety performance and good business performance go hand-in-hand.
• Safety must be given equal priority with production, quality, cost control, etc.
• All work can be done safely.
• All accidents and injuries can be prevented.
• Safety is a job that is never finished.
• Safety is everyone’s responsibility.
• LIVES measures performance and compliance and not just injuries.
• No job is so important that an employee’s personal safety or the safety of those around them or the environment should be jeopardized for the job to be accomplished!
• We will develop systematic programs to:

        -Ensure our reliability,
        -Investigate all interruptions to our system,
        -Drive our performance to the point that we are available 100 percent of the time we expect to be running our plants, and
        -Ensure we operate our plants in a way that protects our employees and the environment

 

What are the key elements of LIVES?
There are four key elements:

1. Management Leadership—Management acknowledges and accepts its responsibility to maintaining a safe and healthful work environment. It will establish programs, procedures, and systems that will enable to achieve its goal of world class performance.
2. Follow-Through—No program will be successful unless there is follow through in the completion of targeted action items. Large Industries is committed to identifying and acting on concerns identified during process hazard reviews, management of changes, housekeeping reviews, audits, and incident investigations.
3. Employee Involvement —In order to achieve success in health and safety, employees must be committed to LIVES. This commitment is shown through participation in pre-job planning, Job Safety Analyses, routine safety audits, What-If, and safety focus teams. It is also shown through the reporting and acting on potential at risk situations, completing job safety observations, and in their routine housekeeping efforts.
4. Communication—Finally, but certainly not least communication is an essential part of LIVES. One of the key cornerstones of the process is monthly “Sequential Safety Meetings” that cascade down the organization and input/feedback that comes back up through the system. These meetings are documented and minutes are shared with affected employees. There is an emphasis on informing employees about incidents in the business entity via “Flash Reports” and about safety concerns via “Safety Alerts.” There is also an emphasis on letting employees know the results of any sampling done in the workplace whether for noise or air contaminants. These documents are sent broadly throughout the company email system and are also posted for review on the company intranet.