Employee right to safety, including occupational health and safety

The Company’s senior executives view a healthy and safe working environment as a strategic priority; with that in mind, we carry on with programmes to prevent workplace accidents, mitigate occupational diseases, and develop a stronger safety culture.

To promote safety culture, the Company’s management encourages its employees to get involved in operational health and safety management. Most of the Group's divisions and assets have joint health and safety committees (councils) made up of the management, employee and trade union representatives. In 2022, 712 representatives took part in over 11,500 audits and submitted almost 2,600 health and safety improvement proposals.

In 2022, Nornickel’s sites completed external audits to confirm compliance of occupational health and safety management systems at the key assets with ISO 45001:2018 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System). The independent external auditor described the OHS management system as mature and well-established.

In view of hazardous factors identified at Nornickel’s production facilities, the Company furnishes employees with personal protective equipment (PPE), including respiratory protection (respirators, gas masks), hearing protection (earmuffs, earplugs), eye protection (glasses/goggles with UV filters, visors), and skin protection items. The total cost of personal protective equipment in 2022 exceeded RUB 4.6 bn.

In 2022, we revised our Cardinal Safety Rules and OHS incentive programme and carried out awareness-raising activities for employees. From 2023, employees will be paid incentive compensation for identifying risks at their workplaces: RUB 5,000 for identifying a risk and reporting it to their line manager, RUB 7,500 for developing a proposal on risk minimisation, and RUB 10,000 for taking part in the proposal implementation. The risk-oriented approach was implemented in 2022 for pilot projects at Medvezhy Ruchey’s Norilsk Concentrator: 462 risks were identified, of which 222 risks were detected by the blue-collar employees, and 101 risks were eliminated.

Improving the OHS mechanism does not only affect the Company’s internal procedures. 2022 saw the revision of the standard regulating occupational health and safety at all stages of working with contractors. As a result, the Company was able to improve the level of control and occupational safety for contractors operating at Nornickel’s facilities. In 2022, the Company revised the general terms regarding health and safety that are included in agreements with contractors. The amendments focused on avoiding fatalities and non-compliance with the Cardinal Safety Rules, and encouraged contractors to be proactive on health and safety.

To improve occupational safety, we conduct briefings and implement OHS upskilling initiatives. In 2022, Nornickel launched a project to create a workplace safety culture coaching system at 18 of the Group's companies. At the end of the reporting period: 5,030 workers completed the Dynamic Risk Assessment programme, which was held 717 times, and 238 employees completed the Behaviour-Based Safety Audit programme, which was held 33 times.

The above measures foster employee motivation for safe workplace behaviour, accident prevention and mitigation of occupational health and safety risks.

The increase in lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) from 2020 to 2022 is associated with a new approach to recording, classifying and investigating accidents, which helped improve the transparency and reliability of information provided.

For Nornickel’s management, zero workplace fatalities is a key strategic priorityThis goal was made part of the updated Occupational Health and Safety Strategy for 2023–2025.. The Company keeps running dedicated programmes to prevent workplace accidents and expects its suppliers to implement safety procedures and monitoring tools to achieve zero fatalities at workMMC Norilsk Nickel’s Supplier Code of Conduct is available on the Company’s official website.