OCP Group wins gold at IFA 2019

The OCP Group receives the IFA’s 2019 Industry Stewardship Gold Medal for the second year in a row.

The International Fertilizer Association prize was awarded by IFA’s President, Mr. Mostafa Terrab to OCP’s Senior Vice President - Sustainability Platform, Mrs. Hanane Mourchid, on Wednesday, November 20, 2019, at the IFA Strategic Forum in Versailles, France. The award recognizes OCP's strong commitment in terms of safety and confirms the group’s leadership in terms of sustainable development. This award follows the prize previously awarded last year for all the efforts that the group deploys to promote industry stewardship.

In terms of health and safety at work, the OCP Group has implemented substantial efforts and resources to respect the best safety standards, based on anticipation, risk prevention and the ongoing involvement of all its employees. With the support of Dupont OCP Operations Consulting (DOOC), a joint venture between OCP and Dupont dedicated to safety, health at work and environment, the Group has set up a safety excellence program called "Zero incidents". This program aims to take employees and external subcontractors to a state of security interdependence, a state where each individual is not only responsible for his/her own safety, but also for their colleagues’ safety in their workplace.

The OCP Group has integrated 18 health and environmental safety standards on all its industrial sites, involving OCP’s employees and external subcontractors. The goal is to promote the process of reporting information and the treatment of incidents on a daily basis, to prevent accidents, but also to cover the risks of daily interventions at height and in confined spaces. Furthermore, it aims to carry out risk analyses at different individual workstations, and on the HSE management of external partner enterprises, even the standards of choice and quality of the personal protective equipment of the employees. The top management of OCP supports this major cultural transformation project, which relies on a strong governance system including training, measurement and reported information of field indicators, audits and continuous improvement.

Thanks to these efforts, the accident frequency rate in OCP’s industrial sites (including OCP’s employees and external companies) has dropped by 60% in the last five years (*). According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) benchmark, this recorded frequency rate largely exceeds the international performances.

The IFA Strategic Forum was held from 18 to 20 November in Versailles and brought together 200 leaders of the phosphate and fertilizer industry along with partners and experts from a number of related fields working on sustainable plant nutrition.