Health, Safety & Environment

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Health

RIL focuses on achieving excellence in occupational and personal health of its employees across locations. The Company has state-of-the-art Occupational Health Centres (OHC) at its manufacturing divisions and major offices. These OHCs are equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic equipment and are manned by qualified occupational health specialists.

RIL's medical and occupational health departments are also in the forefront to prevent lifestyle diseases such as heart problems, hypertension, diabetes and communicable diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV / AIDS through a series of regular health awareness sessions, daily health tips and personal counseling. Health promotional activities are also extended to employees' family members staying at Company townships.

RIL has full-fledged modern hospitals at its major townships at Jamnagar, Vadodara, Nagothane and Patalganga, which cater to curative health services to employees and their family members. In FY 2010-11, new facilities were added to the hospitals including a state-ofthe- art, special burns treatment unit, at the Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Jamnagar.

Started eight years ago as a pilot project at few manufacturing divisions, Change Agents for Safety, Health and workplace Environment (CASHe) has grown and become a movement encompassing the entire enterprise with thousands of improvement projects. The programme has been instrumental in creating a culture of implementing health, safety and environment improving projects at workplace on a priority basis. This programme has also helped the Company improve its performance on the occupational health and safety front.

Safety

In FY 2010-11, RIL's HSE Management System (HSE-MS) has been further strengthened with new initiatives. The HSE-MS have been institutionalised to establish Company-wide safety management objectives, guiding principles and processes.

RIL continues to pursue world class operational excellence through the HSE Management System initiative, in strategic partnership with M/s DuPont Sustainable Solutions. In FY 2010-11, RIL implemented the operational discipline framework of 11 characteristics to embed operational discipline in the organization in 6 major manufacturing sites. RIL's manufacturing divisions undertook a rigorous self-assessment of operational discipline and they are in the process of implementing improvement measures with total employee involvement.

Process Safety Management (PSM) has been further strengthened in FY 2010-11, through strategic initiatives for sustenance. One of the focuses was to conduct self assurance studies for the safety of the community through Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) and Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) in plants prioritized on risk basis. Implementation of recommendations emerging from such studies has resulted in evolving inherent safer measures in operations of such plants.

RIL's Central HSE audit programme is a critical component of the HSE governance process, which has been specifically designed to ensure that stakeholder expectations, HSE Policy and HSE Management Standards are being effectively implemented across the Group. The HSE Audit Protocol is based on the HSE Management Standards and systems and performance management principles. The process provides assurance to the Group and the Board that the HSE Management Standards are being implemented and it identifies best practices that can be shared across RIL Group.

The Company has further reinforced its ties with global institutions such as the Centre for Chemical Process Safety, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Chemical Council and the British Safety Council, which gives access to industry best practices.

RIL's HSE systems are aligned with recognised management systems and global best practices. Most manufacturing divisions have been certified to ISO 14001:2004 certification of Environmental Management Systems and OHSAS 18001:2007 certification of Safety Management Systems.

At the E&P operations, RIL has adopted the HSE Management System and uses Safety Case approach for the onshore and offshore facilities to demonstrate high levels of safety integrated into the design and operations through several risk and hazard assessment studies. RIL has established emergency management systems and is checking and improving the efficacy of the same through periodic mock drills at various facilities of the entire KGD6 assets, drilling and CBM operations.

RIL's KG-D6 asset comprising of Onshore Terminal, Supply Bases and Off-shore facilities were certified with ISO-9001:2008; ISO 14001:2004 and OHSAS 18001:2007 by M/s DNV in April 2010. The Company has also labeled the same as 'Integrated Management System' for the KG-D6 Asset. Additionally, M/s DNV successfully completed the first 'Surveillance Audit' of RIL's KG-D6 asset in August 2010.

For Coal Bed Methane and Onshore Drilling operations without any Lost Time Incidents, both internal and regulatory audits (through Oil Industry Safety Directorate) were conducted to ensure that all statutory requirements are met in the operations.

RIL's stress on enhancing HSE performance through launching of HSE management Systems of international Standards continued with further launching of 18 HSE standards and 41 associated HSE procedures, which will be implemented across the Company's E&P operations. RIL has a well planned safety training programme for employees and also contract employees.

Environment

In its pursuit of excellence in environmental management towards sustainable business development, Reliance continues to be committed to develop and implement Environmental Management System (EMS) throughout the Group to measure, control and reduce the environmental impact. In this context, during FY 2010-11, Gadimoga and Jamnagar SEZ manufacturing divisions have instituted ISO-14001:2004. With this, the international environmental accreditation based management system covers Company's all manufacturing divisions. In majority of cases this has been integrated with ISO: 9001:2008 Quality Management System and ISO-18001:2007 OSHA management systems.

RIL has also referred Global Reporting Initiative's guidelines 2006 for developing its environment performance indicators. This concerted effort is aimed at developing environmental initiatives to address to RIL's long term target of becoming water positive, carbon neutral and maximizing possible recycling and reuse of wastes. A management framework with defined structures, roles and responsibilities, group standards, audits and training has been further strengthened.

RIL is fully compliant with various environmental protection and health and safety laws and regulations. In its constant endeavour to be fully compliant with all regulatory standards, RIL has instituted a compliance management system, which ensures that the Company is in full compliance to all applicable legal requirements. Prior to the implementation of new projects the potential environmental impacts are assessed. The environment impact assessment and risk analysis are performed for all new and major expansion projects and necessary measures are incorporated to mitigate adverse environmental impacts at the planning stage of project.

Further, in FY 2010-11, RIL has updated its group environmental standards and second party audit protocols. In an important initiative, in FY 2010-11, the Company developed 'RIL- Environmental Management Process' with the help of international agencies. The processes include work streams, role and responsibility matrix and performance indicators to monitor the progress. RIL strongly believes that these actions will be the Change Agent for further reducing the Company's environmental risks significantly.

In RIL's improvement efforts, audits play an important role. The Company has developed three-tier audit systems. Trained and qualified internal auditors perform internal or first party environmental audits of our environment management system at regular intervals. In FY 2010-11, RIL has developed an environment second party audit protocol for the RIL- Environmental Standards. The high level environmental audit by the external agency or third party is performed for all manufacturing divisions which include annual audit by Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) recognized auditors in the State of Gujarat and ISO-14001:2004 audits by the accreditation agencies at regular frequency.

In FY 2010-11, a five star environment audit by British Safety Council, UK was performed at Hazira, Barabanki and Allahabad manufacturing divisions. These manufacturing divisions have achieved more than 90% score. With this, RIL's nine manufacturing divisions have been audited for its environmental management by the British Safety Council (BSC) and the remaining manufacturing divisions are planned to be audited in FY 2011 -12. In line with the world class organization, RIL reports its externally verified environmental performance based on Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. We achieved a trend of continuous reduction in our emissions and discharges and increase in effluent and waste recycling.

To be in harmony with nature, RIL continues its efforts such as mangrove plantation and maintenance in the coastal areas with the help of international agencies, tree plantation, maintenance of green belts and gardens in and around our manufacturing units, vermi-compost of waste and its use as manure, recycling of treated water in cooling water system and in horticulture activities, etc. Further, RIL is partnering with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India and Gujarat Ecological Commission to set up the National Centre for Marine Biodiversity (NCMB) – India's first Centre of Excellence for the study of India's coastal biodiversity, at Jamnagar. This is the first such initiative in India where the Government and a private sector stakeholder will be partnering to safeguard the biodiversity of coastal areas.

RIL's continued efforts on reducing environment footprint are aptly reflected in its E&P business, at domestic and also international operations. RIL completed its planned exploration operations with all necessary regulatory approvals and permits in its domestic and international blocks in Australia, Timor Leste, Yemen, Oman, Kurdistan and Columbia. RIL completed its drilling campaign in Timor Leste without any environmental incidents. Apart from internal tracking of environmental compliance through an in-house portal, external agencies like M/s. PricewaterhouseCoopers also monitored RIL's regulatory compliance through its Compliance Monitoring Tools. No adverse notices / reports were received from the statutory bodies during FY 2010-11.

Site operations in KG-D6 received certification under ISO-14001:2004 under an Integrated Management System from M/s. DNV. Wastes, effluents and emissions, at RIL's E&P operations, are in full compliance to the norms and standards. The treated waste water from sanitary effluents is being reused in the green belt.

With an objective of imparting awareness on oil spills control at sea during emergencies, RIL conducted oil spill response mock exercises in the East Coast with the involvement of all major operators and Indian Coast Guard in September 2010. To inculcate the spirit of cleaner beaches along the coast, RIL joined Indian Coast Guard and State Pollution Control Board's initiative of beach cleaning at Kakinada in October 2010.

RIL regularly conducts environmental monitoring around its facilities at both onshore and offshore and submits the monitoring reports to the regulatory bodies without any adverse comments. RIL engaged the services of national environmental laboratories like National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) to conduct the onshore and offshore environmental monitoring studies. RIL's production facilities in and around Gadimoga (KG-D6 onshore terminal site) are well developed with green belt. In FY 2010-11, the Company planted more than 10,000 saplings, 43,000 shrub plants, 37000 sq.mts of lawn and 15,000 sq. mts. of ground covers apart from about 20,000 seasonal plants. Orchards of coconut, guava, pomegranate, jack fruit and mangoes are cultivated in the operational site. Some native animals like ducks, rabbits, love birds and fouls are also brought in the green belt to enhance biodiversity.

RIL has undertaken a new initiative for conversion of organic waste to vermi compost. This includes processing of food and paper wastes from its operations at Gadimoga. RIL continues to support the maintenance of mangrove plantation undertaken with the help of M/s. MS Swaminathan Foundation in an area of 10 Hectares at Chollangipeta which is near to the KG-D6 facility. Further, the Company is undertaking a study of biodiversity enhancement in this region with M/s. MS Swaminathan Foundation through project grants.