Ten Years of hard work for Smelter to win Business Ethics Award
New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS) was awarded the AUT Business Ethics Award for its “The Goal is Zero” safety
programme at the Deloitte / Management Top 200 Awards 2004 last night.
Comalco Chief Operations Officer Tom Campbell is delighted that NZAS’ commitment to the health and safety of its
employees has again been recognised. “Working with molten metal may be considered hazardous, but at NZAS we believe that
all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated,” said Mr Campbell. “Our goal is zero injuries and zero incidents.
“Commitment to the health and safety of our employees is the key driver of the NZAS culture and we set a demanding
target of a 50 per cent improvement in safety performance each year.
“Ten years ago NZAS’ safety performance was only average by world standards. That was simply unacceptable. It has taken
ten years of unending focus on safety, by the entire workforce at Tiwai to get to this point. Any injury at all is
unacceptable and we are determined to truly reach our goal of zero.”
Earlier this year the International Aluminium Institute rated NZAS as the Best Performer of 60 smelters worldwide in
their annual Safety Performance Benchmarking exercise.
Tom Campbell, Comalco Chief Operations Officer, PH 0274 353 487 Brian Cooper, GM Operations PH 03 218 5442, or 027 2710
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Notes for editors: NZAS is a joint venture owned by Comalco Limited (79.36 per cent) and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Co.
Ltd (20.64%). NZAS produces 334,00 tonnes of aluminium per annum including the highest purity aluminium in the world.
NZAS contributes an average net economic benefit of $121 million per annum to NZ and is a world leader in the aluminium
industry in terms of production, efficiency and safety. NZAS is five star accredited by the National Occupational Safety
Standards Association of Australia and participates in the ACC Partnership Programme at the highest level available.