ILA Health & Safety Award 2021
Background
In the year 2018 on the occasion of its General Assembly and Information Exchange Forum in South Africa the ILA joined the Global Initiative “Vision Zero” (www.visionzero.global) for safety, health and wellbeing at work, developed by the International Social Security Association (ISSA).
By committing to this successful international strategy, ILA intends to establish a culture of prevention at all workplaces in the global lime industry and strengthen its efforts for better workplace safety, health and wellbeing towards zero accidents and work-related diseases. Accidents at work and occupational diseases are neither predetermined nor unavoidable – they always have man-made causes. By building a strong prevention culture, these causes can be eliminated and work-related accidents, harm and occupational diseases be prevented. Safe and healthy working conditions are not only a legal and moral obligation – they also pay off economically. Healthy working conditions contribute to healthy business.
Within the 7 Golden Rules of the Vision Zero Strategy the lime industry strives for an active involvement of all workers and an open, inspiring communication between leaders, managers and workers to work together for people-driven new ideas and solutions for workplace health and safety. Based on the belief that this pro-active cooperation between company management and workforce creates the best innovative solutions, the ILA Board has taken the decision to establish a new activity: The ILA Health & Safety Award in cooperation with Vision Zero.
ILA Health & Safety Award 2021
On November 29th the first ILA Health & Safety Award 2021 was presented to the winners by Helmut Ehnes (General Secretary, ISSA) and Paul Ellis (ILA President) during a virtual event and ceremony. An international jury comprised of Health & Safety experts from all continents evaluated the submissions within three categories:
1. Technology
2. Prevention Culture
3. Health Prevention
Winner 1: Schaefer Kalk (Malaysia) was awarded for their measures in noise reduction at the kiln and crushing area. Noise exposure and the associated risks for the health of the workers and employees are unfortunately still a very under-estimated area of occupational safety.
Winner 2: Grupo Calidra (Mexico) was awarded for their extensive accident prevention campaign – Incidents in hands that was nicely illustrated by a video and involved not only the work within the lime plant but also integrated the families.
Winner 3: Idwala Lime (South Africa) was awarded for their improvements in occupational health and primary health care by upgrading their own health clinic e.g. in terms of medical surveillance and chronic disease treatment. Finally, Tarmac/CRH (United Kingdom) received a special recognition award for new risks for their efforts in preventing the spread of Covid-19.
Outlook
Due to the good reception and the overall positive feedback on the award, the ILA will install it permanently and presumably award it annually. The next ILA Health & Safety Award Ceremony will take place physically during the next Annual General Assembly of the International Lime Association in Paris in October 2022.
The issue of Health & Safety will continue to be one of the most important and central issues for the lime industry worldwide in the coming years, hence it will remain a main focus of the ILA, too.
