Waste management is a known high-risk sector with accident rates similar to those found in construction and agriculture. As a result health and safety is our primary concern. This is reflected in our key performance measure of accident rate. Continual improvement in our health and safety standards is one of our critical objectives.

In 2011, we introduced a new safety leadership initiative including key targets for directors, whose remuneration has been linked to health and safety performance. This year we have established a dedicated Group Health and Safety Committee chaired by one of our country Managing Directors. These are both highly-visible indications of our commitment to leadership for safety.

As part if our safety leadership initiative more than 100 dedicated health and safety visits to our sites have been carried out by our company directors over the past year. These visits include written reports by directors on their tours, mandatory engagement with employees on site and are backed by a formal training scheme which all directors must undergo. Our new Group Chief Executive underwent his site safety leadership training within three days of joining Shanks.

We are dedicated to involving our employees in health and safety improvements. In this report we have added a performance indicator highlighting the proportion of our operations which are covered by formal joint management and worker health and safety groups.

From benchmarking Shanks is already a high safety performer. As can be seen from our improvement in accident performance over the past year, this is a risk area where we intend to keep improving.