Environment, Health & Safety

How We Operate

GCP is committed to establishing a strong record of environmental, health and safety (EHS) leadership, which is fundamental to being a sustainable organization.

We maintain EHS programs focused on the well-being of our employees, the safety of our products in manufacturing and use, and the impact of our facilities and products on the environment.

We coordinate our efforts through an audited EHS Management System that meets international ISO 14001 and OSHAS 18000 standards. Twenty six percent of our manufacturing locations are certified to ISO 14001 and seven percent to OSHAS 18000.  We continue to pursue additional certifications.

Our EHS Policy

GCP Applied Technologies is committed to protecting the environment and the health and safety of our employees, customers and communities in which we operate, while fully complying with applicable laws, regulations and our own global standards.  We are committed to providing a safe and healthy work environment as a prerequisite of our operations; continuous improvement towards minimizing our environmental impact and preventing pollution, while providing world-class products that can be used safely by our customers.

We seek to continually improve our EHS performance by setting objectives around reducing injuries with the goal of “No One Hurt”. These efforts include monitoring of our EHS metrics, providing training to our employees, contractors and customers, and reducing risks.

While safety and environmental protection are ultimately the responsibility of each of us, GCP incorporates EHS and ethical standards into the planning and execution of our business.

 

EHS Performance Metrics

We set ambitious goals, using key performance indicators to track, measure and report on our progress.

Safety 

Our safety goal is “No One Hurt”, which means a recordable incident rate of zero. We will continuously look for ways to reduce safety risk and to avoid situations that could lead to risk.  Our expectation is that employees, contractors and visitors return home as safe and healthy as when they arrived at the start of the day.

GCP has not had an employee or contractor fatality in more than 13 years and we are dedicated to maintaining that record. We routinely track incidents that have a potential to result in serious or life altering injuries and implement corrective actions, even if no one was injured, and foster a work environment that encourages employees to participate in and contribute to our work place safety initiatives. 

We use the US OSHA definitions to classify incidents globally.  We calculate an incident rate normalized to 100 employees.

   2017  2018 2019
Incidents with Potential for Severe or Life Altering Injury  0.78 0.72 0.60

Environment

We strive to reduce our environmental impact and, through our products, assist our customers to reduce theirs.  

We track releases to the environment greater than 19 L or 5 gallons, below any legal reporting requirement. 

 

   2017  2018 2019
Releases to Environment 15 12 14
Releases to Containment 40 35 39
Total Releases 55 47 53

We track all incidents that require reporting to a government agency, such as a permit violation or spill. We also track Notices of Violation and any fine, notice or other regulatory action by government agencies at the federal, state or local level. 

Regulatory Metrics

   2017  2018 2019
Govt. Reportable Incidents 2 0 2
Notices of Violation 5 8 9
Fines and Penalties $3,6951 $6,539 $1,430
1 $3,195 of the fines paid in 2017 were the result of a state OSHA inspection that occurred prior to our acquisition of the business segment involved.

Of the 41 releases to the environment reported from 2017-2019 noted in previous chart, none exceeded a reportable quantity as defined by US EPA CERCLA regulations.