We want to make our employees more attentive than ever before to possible risks at their place of work. For this reason, we give many of them special training to make them fit to face future demands in the fields of health, safety and environmental protection. We constantly analyze procedures in the production plants to establish a basis for optimizing these processes.

Worldwide, more than 120,000 people work for Bayer. They are regularly given information and trained in matters of environmental protection and safety.

Ongoing developments in the fields of health, safety and environmental protection (abbreviated internationally to HSE) are driven by a number of different factors, and our employees assume a key role here because we could never be successful without their dedication and commitment. Our Guidelines for Responsible Care in Environmental Protection and Safety therefore include - for good reason - the following statement:
"Success ... requires a commitment by all the company's employees to apply their expertise responsibly ... Appropriate training is provided for the employees, each of whom must set an example by his or her behavior in regard to environmental protection and safety."

The workforce is supported in this by the management and also by so-called Responsible Care coordinators, who operate throughout the Bayer Group. By being specifically involved in annual campaigns on current topics, featuring exhibitions, poster campaigns and attractive competitions, the employees receive additional incentives and plenty of encouragement.

HSE is a matter for the management at Bayer. The Board of Management, supported by specialized departments, coordinates the further development of the Bayer Group via committees and teams made up of representatives from all the relevant sections of the company.

In 1998, we additionally introduced an internal HSE audit to monitor the functioning of our HSE management systems. In our Responsible Care Report of 1999, we described the pilot phase of this audit program. The program is currently being implemented worldwide under the name BAIT (Bayer Assessment and Improvement Tool) at all the sites of the Bayer Group. The first step involved all the sites carrying out a self-audit (which must be updated every two years), while the second step, to be completed by the end of 2001, covers the auditing - also using BAIT - of around 25 sites in Germany and abroad by specialists who do not belong to the site. The aim is for all the relevant company sites to have been audited once by the year 2004.

By the end of 2000, 37 production sites had been additionally certified according to the global ISO 14001 standard, documenting the fact that their environmental management system conforms to international requirements. Eight European sites are certified to EMAS (Environmental Management and Audit Scheme). We will, however, not be undertaking any more EMAS audits because ISO 14001 auditing has now become the established norm worldwide.

To ensure that all audits are of a consistently high standard, regular training courses are offered for internal Bayer auditors. Until now, some 70 auditors from the affiliated companies, business groups and specialist departments have been trained throughout the Bayer Group. The know-how accumulated by our team of auditors and their observations at the audited sites have the added benefit that these staff are ideally placed to deploy this experience at their own place of work.

Environmental Protection & Safety

However good a guideline may be, it is worthless if our employees are unaware of it or do not give it full attention at their place of work. For this reason, discussions on safety are held every day in our production plants and many thousands of employees are given the opportunity every year to attend special information and training seminars.