2008-12-11 06:06:00 | Signature of a framework agreement on accident prevention and health & safety

2008-12-11 | Signature of a framework agreement on accident prevention and health & safety

Paris, December 11, 2008. Henri Proglio, Chairman and CEO of Veolia Environnement,  and all the trade union organizations of the company’s French Works Council signed a framework agreement on accident prevention and health & safety on December 9. The agreement is the result of a joint work program carried out by the Veolia Works Council over the past 12 months. It reinforces Veolia Environnement’s policy on workplace risk management.

Six priorities are underlined:

- Favour consultation and the construction of collective approaches to accident prevention and health & safety by associating structures with legal responsibility in the field, such as national health & safety administrations (in France, the CHSCTs);
- Improve identification of the risks associated with the different business activities, make progress in measuring those risks and manage them in order to increase prevention;
- Make occupational health & safety an aspect of the professionalism of all employees, in particular as part of training and evaluation interviews;
- Facilitate access to health care and raise employees awareness of their own health & safety issues;
- Favour career paths that prevent inaptitudes in order to make health matters correspond with skills management;
- Encourage a better health & safety balance between employees’ professional and private lives.

To achieve these goals, Veolia Environnement has set up an Accident Prevention and Health & Safety department that has responsibility for coordinating the various networks, ongoing analysis work and forward-thinking programs. A monitoring committee has also been set up within the Veolia Works Council. Its main role will be to ensure that the principles of the agreement are implemented and complied with, and to promote best practices.

It is intended to deploy the principles of the agreement within Veolia Environnement’s companies inside and outside of France.


Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE and NYSE: VE) is the worldwide reference in environmental services.With more than 319,000 employees the company has operations all around the world and provides tailored solutions to meet the needs of municipal and industrial customers in four complementary segments: water management, waste management, energy management and freight and passenger transportation. Veolia Environnement recorded revenue of €32,6 billion in 2007. www.veolia.com