Health, Safety & Environment
Overview and Policies
CSR’s Health, Safety and Environmental (HS&E) management system promotes the ongoing development of a positive health, safety and environmental culture through development of policies and procedures, and promotion of them on the company’s intranet and via training and monitoring through a designated health and safety officer and a HS&E Committee. These practices are intended to encourage ownership of HS&E matters by all CSR employees as an integral part of our day-to-day operations.
Key aspects of the HS&E policies include:
Health and Safety Policy
- The Company regards the management of health and safety as an integral part of its business and as a management priority.
- It is our policy that all activities will be carried out in a safe manner and we will establish and evaluate, as appropriate, processes and practices to ensure the health, safety and welfare of our employees and of others who may be affected by our activities.
- The hazards associated with our business activities will be identified and mitigated through formal assessment and will be reduced where reasonably practicable.
- The Company will comply with current health and safety legislation, as a minimum, seeking to establish policies and procedures that enable the Company and its employees to meet this commitment and will work to establish and apply best practice to all its activities where this is practicable.
- Employees are expected and encouraged to be proactive on health and safety issues. All employees, contractors and sub-contractors are required to co-operate with the Company and their colleagues in implementing the policy and shall ensure that their own work is without risk to themselves or others as far as is reasonably practicable.
Environmental Policy
- The Company aims for continual improvement of the environmental management system through employee training, consultation and involvement in identifying environmental impacts; encouraging management commitment; performing regular reviews and conducting internal audits of the environmental management system.
- Analysis is undertaken of the organisation’s significant environmental impacts, including where these involve potential risk of pollution, through a formal assessment process and using these assessments as guidance in setting objectives and targets.
- The Company is committed to co-operation with the applicable local authority and site landlords on relevant environmental issues and due consideration of any environmental complaints relating to CSR sites or operations.
- The Company is committed to compliance with environmental legislation applicable to CSR’s products and operations and maintains a register which identifies applicable environmental legislation and relevant guidance on how to meet these requirements.
- The Company gives due consideration to environmental issues raised by customers and seeks to respond positively to customer-led environmental initiatives.
- The Company works closely with those involved in the manufacturing supply chain, in order to achieve best practice in the environmental aspects of material sourcing, product manufacture, disposal and recycling.
CSR has an Environmental Management System (EMS) which defines the environmental policy of the Group and sets objectives intended to drive continuous improvements in environmental awareness and practices.
More on CSR’s environmental practices associated with products is explained below.
CSR has a HS&E Committee which meets regularly and is chaired by the Facilities Manager. HS&E policies are available to all employees on the CSR intranet, as are the minutes of the HS&E Committee and current HS&E initiatives. An annual report is presented to the Board covering health and safety matters which includes statistics on accidents and incidents, progress against targets from the previous period and objectives for the year ahead.
HS&E Objectives and Initiatives
CSR is well prepared for the introduction of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, a new mandatory scheme in the UK that aims to reduce energy consumption and contribute to a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This objective is being managed through financial levies on businesses in the UK based on the consumption of electricity.
In readiness for the implementation of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme CSR has developed plans, investigated appropriate measures and continued its energy monitoring programme to identify potential areas where energy efficiencies can be made.
CSR is developing purchasing strategies so that an evaluation of the energy efficiency of a particular item of equipment is part of the selection criteria.
CSR remains committed to finding ways in which it can develop further the recycling of used materials.
During 2008 CSR met its target of reducing the amount of material being consigned to landfill in the UK by 40%. In 2009 it extended its recycling waste streams to include the recycling of plastics and cans, and biowaste and set a stretching target of recycling 50% of all the waste CSR produces in the UK which was successfully met. In conjunction with a local waste contractor CSR’s biowaste is processed into compost which can then be made available to local farmers and members of the public as a soil conditioner. The total amount of waste being recycled during 2009 rose from 895,940 litres to 1,130,300 litres. Over the same period, CSR experienced a 6.7% increase in the amount of waste produced from 2,234,000 litres to 2,384,120 litres.
The main objective for 2009 was to tackle waste at source by finding ways in which potential waste can be prevented from coming on to site in the first place. During 2010 CSR will be looking at ways in which it can limit the amount of unsolicited or unnecessary material being provided by third parties, whilst still maintaining the existing challenging recycling target. CSR will also target increasing its recycling of waste materials from 50% in 2009 to 55% in 2010.
During 2009 CSR continued to utilise Information Technology to support existing energy efficiencies whilst still providing state of the art research facilities and data storage capacity. Since 2007, CSR has successfully reduced power consumption in the UK as a result of improvements to the way in which the Company store and configure information systems, resulting in the equivalent of around 220 fewer physical servers. This is equivalent to a reduction in power consumption of 37%, against figures as at the end of 2006 providing both financial and environmental benefits.
In recognition of the increasing globalisation of CSR’s business operations, in 2008 the Company reported its intention to adopt video conferencing, which was expected to provide further financial benefits, operating efficiencies and reduction in carbon footprint. From 1 May 2009, CSR implemented a programme of rolling out video and audio conferencing facilities across all its international locations. Since their introduction these facilities have been used for an average of approximately 190 hours every month and their utilisation is envisaged to increase through 2010.
Product Compliance
An ongoing objective is to optimise the use of greener materials in our end products. CSR is committed to developing and supplying products which meet the highest standards regarding minimising the use of hazardous substances and increasing the recyclability of constituent materials and the finished product.
CSR has dedicated internal resource which assists in the development of all new products and the review of existing product lines targeting the use of greener materials. Part of the team’s role is to monitor established and pending legislation and standards published by national and international governments and agencies, and to ensure that CSR is proactive in going beyond the minimum requirements in its compliance with the types and quantities of materials used.
In this respect CSR works closely with both customers and suppliers in developing products, which reduces the use of hazardous materials, and through testing and certification ensures ongoing compliance.
CSR’s standard integrated circuits are fully compliant with all existing European legislation (including RoHS and REACH) and with equivalent legislation in other territories where it has been introduced.
The Company has processes in place to make sure that customers are supported with up to date materials information and laboratory analysis to prove environmental compliance of our products.
HS&E Related Certification
CSR recognises the importance of social, environmental and ethical (SEE) matters across all of its worldwide offices.
CSR's two Cambridge locations operate an integrated HS&E management system, which is used to provide a framework for the delivery of measures to minimise our impact on the environment and to provide a structure in support of safe and healthy work environments and processes. In recognition of commitment to this, CSR's integrated HS&E management system has been certified to OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14001 by Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA).
OHSAS 18001:2007 and ISO 14001:2004 Certification Download a PDF of the OHSAS 18001:2007 and ISO 14001:2004 (774Kb)
CSR recognises the importance of ensuring that our key suppliers have appropriate policies and practices on SEE matters. Key manufacturing partners are selected and assessed based on certification to appropriate globally recognised standards such as ISO14001, OHSAS 18001 and SA8000. Audits of their operations are undertaken regularly to ensure that appropriate standards and certification exists.
During 2009 a review of product environmental compliance was conducted by CSR’s Supplier Audit Team at TSMC and ASE in Taiwan. This confirmed that current certifications to the recognised standards mentioned above were being maintained. The review also considered the supplier’s wider HSE policies and management systems in connection with CSR’s requirements. The results of these assessments were reported to CSR management, which concluded that the suppliers complied with our requirements.