The Group's policy

Culture Based Safety (CBS)

Since 2005, Total has gradually organized a process for evaluating and strengthening safety culture. Known as Culture-Based Safety (CBS), it aims to foster a more participatory management style, by stressing both management leadership and employee participation.

Employees and partners are encouraged to behave responsibly and proactively, in particular by reporting any potentially hazardous situation.

A shared safety culture is gradually developing in all areas:

• To further enhance technological risk management, Group units are harmonizing their indicators and technical standards. Management meetings are becoming more widespread to validate serious industrial accident reports and near-miss analyses.
• To continue to improve operational risk management, safety tours have become a common practice in most units. The Cray Valley resin business has Leadership Tours, Petrochemicals has Senior Tours and at Refining & Marketing safety tours are conducted by members of the Management Committee every two years. This type of presence in the field is encouraged across the management chain at all of our subsidiaries.
• Since road transportation safety is not only the responsibility of drivers, management's organization of trips and rounds has also been reviewed. Initiatives include route optimization, the installation of event data recorders in vehicles and risk analyses for routes that pose specific problems.

This field-centric approach heightens the effectiveness of safety management systems (SMS), which are still the heart of the process, by facilitating their assimilation by everyone involved.

The 2007 employee satisfaction survey, known as the Total Survey, revealed both a sharp increase in safety awareness among employees and a significant improvement in the management practices of immediate supervisors, through exemplary behavior and communication.

Furthermore, the annual performance reviews now conducted across the businesses include discussion of safety objectives. Supervisors can use specific recommendations to set targets with their employees.

Gradual rollout based on the specific requirements of professional disciplines and local environments

The common thread running through our 2006-2009 safety action plan is forging a strong safety culture.

• Pilot initiatives were conducted in 2006 at around 20 Marketing France and Total Petrochemicals business units, which rolled out a broad-based program to enhance their safety culture. Once an audit had been performed, appropriate action plans were formulated, stressing both management involvement and employee participation. The pilot initiatives served as a basis for adjusting and optimizing our approach, which is now used across all our businesses.

• As part of this effort, our business units, supported by the holding company, decided to deploy initiatives to improve safety behavior and practices at their level. The outcome was the Together! project, which consists of six videos depicting hazardous behaviors and/or organizations. They are intended to serve as the foundation for awareness sessions that teach employees about safety behavior and workplace precautions.