Kraton Corporation

HSES Policy

HSES / HEALTH, SAFETY, ENVIRONMENT AND SECURITY

Safety is the number one core value at Kraton. We strive to achieve an injury-free workplace by making safety an integral part of our culture and incorporating it into every aspect of our operations. We empower employees to take ownership of safety at the local and global level. Our global Health, Safety, Environment and Security (HSES) network develops guidelines to help employees maintain safe working conditions at all our sites, and we continuously refine those best practices.

HSES Policy Letter
HSES Policy

Kraton Corporation, specialty chemical company, and its subsidiaries (Kraton), will conduct business in a manner that promotes a safe, secure and healthful workplace for our employees and contractors, protects the environment, upholds product stewardship & safety of our products, and ensures that we will continue to be a valued member of the communities in which we operate and a valued supplier to our customers.

We believe that Health, Safety, Environmental and Security (HSE&S) performance is a primary measure of our company’s success. We are committed to being an industry leader in HSE&S performance through the following guiding principles:

  • We are compliant, respectful and ethical; we act with integrity and we expect the same from our customers and suppliers.
  • We design and operate our sites and processes in a manner that ensures the safety and security of our employees, contractors, environment, and the communities where Kraton facilities are located.
  • We support our customers and suppliers to help ensure that Kraton products and raw materials are handled, transported, and processed in a safe, secure and environmentally responsible manner.
  • We communicate openly and honestly with our stakeholders the hazards and risks associated with our products and operations and we regularly report progress on our HSE&S and sustainability performance.
  • We focus on good corporate citizenship, giving due consideration to sustainable use of resources, reduction of emissions and environmental impacts, and improved product safety during all stages of our product life cycle.
  • We adhere to the Responsible Care guiding principles and continually improve our HSE&S management systems to enhance our performance.
  • We set goals and objectives that demonstrate our core values of safety & integrity.

 

Safety Performance

Kraton is committed to continuously improving our safety performance, which includes learning from incidents and near misses, and implementing process and procedural safeguards to prevent future incidents. This continued focus on safety resulted in our HSES performance ranking among the top percentile when compared with known industry benchmarks. We will continue to enhance our processes and procedures to achieve a zero-incident workplace.

Kraton monitors and tracks every incident. We conduct in-depth reviews of all reportable incidents and significant near misses, in addition to a formal root cause analysis with corrective action when warranted. We then distribute a lessons learned safety review to remind everyone throughout the company of safety awareness opportunities.

We also implemented Life Saving Principles, which are 10 HSES guiding principles that reinforce our core value of safety and provide specific connect points to daily activities at our sites. These Life Saving Principles are posted at each site and are directly supported by Kraton’s top leadership.

We strive to ensure that our sites conduct operations in a manner that protects the safety of our people and the environment. Risk analysis is a major factor in preventing safety and environmental incidents. To ensure safe operations, all Kraton sites perform hazard and operability studies regularly. Every day, our operators use our Life Critical Procedures, permitting and risk assessment processes to check their work area, take care of coworkers, contractor and equipment and alert production management of any potential issues. Their assessments are the basis for risk mitigation and control.

 

Environmental Stewardship

Kraton is committed to continuously improving the environmental stewardship of our operations. Over the past few years, we substantially reduced our environmental footprint. This includes significantly reducing our environmental impact by decreasing energy use in our plants, switching to cleaner-burning fuels, improving spill and leak prevention and enhancing wastewater treatment.

Between 2014 and 2016, we reduced greenhouse gas emissions from our operations by 22 percent. This was mainly accomplished by replacing the Belpre plant’s coal-fired boilers with natural gas-fired boilers and using more biomass instead of heavy fuel oil at our plants.

As we work towards a vision to increase resource efficiency and minimize waste generation, we continue to implement effective waste reduction programs, especially in regards to eliminating leaks and spills, using our byproducts for fuel and improving quality, and production consistency.

 

Responsible Care®

Kraton is a member of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), and our CEO signed the Declaration of Support for the Responsible Care Global Charter. Responsible Care is the chemical industry’s world-class environmental, health, safety and security performance initiative designed to ensure the business of chemistry is safe, secure and sustainable. Kraton embraced this initiative, and we are committed to ensuring our global operations meet the highest HSES standards. Together with our stakeholders and in partnership with our industry, we are working to address challenges and develop solutions that make a positive difference for our employees and the environment.