AMG stakeholders and the communities where we operate remain central to our business. Within our company, our human rights principles are sustained through the provision of safe and healthy working conditions in a non-discriminatory environment. We continuously support these principles by living our values in our interactions with local and national governments and the communities in which we operate. AMG is invested in the communities where we operate and committed to hiring employees from the community, investing in building diverse talent pools, and providing training to improve skill levels. Wherever possible, we endeavor to extend our values and principles to our suppliers and contractors.
Diversity and inclusion, human rights, and safety are the primary focuses of AMG’s approach to maintaining a sustainable business for our people. We invest in our people to develop their skills and provide training in critical areas like technical and professional development, quality, anti-corruption, human rights, and health and safety. AMG respects the rights and freedoms for individual employees to freely make choices about their career as described in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Encompassing these efforts is AMG’s commitment to achieving the highest standards of safety and environmental conduct at all its manufacturing facilities and producing materials that help its customers to minimize negative environmental impact.
AMG BRAZIL PUBLIC RECOGNITION
In 2021, AMG Brazil was awarded with a Recognition on Good Suppliers Practices Prize from Novelis. This award recognizes initiatives from partners of Novelis contributing to a more sustainable world. The award was won through the Programa de Voluntariado – Conexao do Bem, a volunteering project, and was won in the sustainability category which looked specifically at positive social projects on business and community sustainability.
AMG Brazil was also recognized with two Prêmios Ser Humano prizes from the Brazilian Association of Human Resources of Minas Gerais (ABRH-MG) in the area of Development for their projects entitled Cuida AMG – 5 Caminhos para o Bem-estar and AMG Segura – Fortalencendo Cultura e Practicas de Cuidado, both of which promote a work environment that materializes AMG’s values and beliefs.
Nothing is more important to AMG than the safety, health, and well-being of our workers and their families. All injuries and occupational illnesses are preventable, and we firmly believe that there is no job worth doing in an unsafe manner. Safety is understood across our business units as our number one priority.
AMG fosters a culture of safety communication and encourages our people to actively listen to safety and health concerns to fully understand each issue, while supporting each other to work in a safe manner. Our employees understand that part of what keeps us safe is compliance with all applicable legal requirements and site-specific safety programs and procedures. Our leadership team acts with a sense of urgency to eliminate or effectively control safety, health, and environmental hazards and risks.
AMG Safety Commitment
- Continuously identify and implement safe and healthy ways to do the job;
- Hold each other accountable for superior health and safety practices;
- Keep protection of safety, health, and the environment as a value that drives overall performance;
- Remember that no task is so important that it puts the safety and health of employees at risk;
- Provide the leadership and resources needed to achieve our vision;
- Encourage each other to be champions of safety and health, both at work and at home; and
- Maintain a high degree of emergency preparedness.
AMG safety programs are unique to each of our sites and their management systems are tailored to their local regulatory environment. Formal safety management systems continue to play an important role in achieving zero harm to employees. Our sites review and maintain their safety management systems through internal audits and participate in external audits when seeking certification.
Our individual sites manage safety training for all employees and contractors. The nature and rigor of our safety trainings are tailored to the type of work completed at each site. For example, a higher-hazard facility requires a full week of training before an employee may begin work, whereas a low-risk office building will require a lower training commitment. Contractor safety training is a formal requirement at our facilities with current ISO 45001 and previous OHSAS 18001 certification.
SAFETY AT AMG: EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
As concerns over climate change and the increasing risk from natural hazards emerge, AMG continues to assess the risk and identify practical, cost-effective engineering solutions to improve our resilience to natural hazard loss and resulting business interruption. The team at AMG Antimony, in Le Genest Saint Isle, France recently invested in a portable Water-Gate™ barrier system from Megasecure. The Water-Gate™ system can be rapidly deployed in a short period of time to mitigate flooding. AMG Antimony’s due diligence helps to ensure the safety of our employees, the protection of our property, and our ability to continue to manufacture our products and service our customers safely and responsibly.
At AMG’s corporate level, our leadership remains engaged with the health and safety and performance of our sites. Each site produces a monthly safety report, which is consolidated into a management report for AMG’s Management Board. In addition to this monthly reporting, AMG instituted Safety Alerts for safety issues, such as a lost-time incident, that require immediate attention. When a site initiates a Safety Alert, their concern goes immediately to AMG’s Vice President of Sustainability, Environment, Health and Safety and receives appropriate attention. AMG develops lessons learned from any safety incident that we share across our Company as a method of education and prevention.
AMG also participates with the Church of England Mining Tailings Safety Initiative to provide disclosures regarding the management of tailings storage facilities.
Safety performance data regarding the number of workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities are a key performance indicator used to identify initiatives that strengthen safety culture and ensure a safe workplace. AMG utilizes the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard for Reporting and Recording Occupational Injuries and Illnesses as the basis for the definition of workplace injuries and illnesses. Total Incident Rate and Lost Time Incident Rate are calculated as follows:
- Total incident Rate: (# of recordable injuries, illnesses, and fatalities) x (200,000) / (Total Hours Worked)
- Lost Time Incident Rate: (excluding fatalities) calculated as follows: (# of lost time injuries and illnesses) x (200,000) / (Total Hours Worked)
Each year, AMG aims to achieve a zero-incident status. This is, of course, a very challenging objective. AMG benchmarks itself to the industry average for Primary Metal Manufacturing (NAICS 331). The most recent data provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics is for 2020. It reports that the Primary Metal Manufacturing industry’s total recordable case rate was 3.9 and the lost time rate was 1.3. AMG is proud that its safety performance is significantly better than the Primary Metal Manufacturing industry average, with a 2021 total recordable case rate of 1.08 (72 percent less than the industry average) and a lost time rate of 0.39, (70 percent less than the industry average). In 2021, internal safety performance in lost time incident rate improved year-over-year by 37 percent. Refer to the table below, extracted from our Environment, Social, Governance, Products Dashboard.
METRIC | AMG GROUP | |
---|---|---|
2020 | 2021 | |
Number of ISO 14001 Certified Facilities | 12 | 12 |
Number of ISO 45001 Certified Facilities | 12 | 15 |
Number of ISO 50001 Certified Facilities | 7 | 7 |
Safety Training Hours | 47,317 | 52,875 |
Lost Time Incident Rate | 0.62 | 0.39 |
Total Incident Rate | 1.05 | 1.08 |
SAFETY SUCCESS
On April 14, 2022, our Henderson, Kentucky Aluminum Plant celebrated 8 years without a lost time incident. This accomplishment by our Henderson, Kentucky Aluminum plant exemplifies AMG’s commitment to keeping our employees healthy and safe. AMG is proud of all our employees who look after one another and make safety an everyday responsibility.
In December 2021, AMG Brazil reached 1,000 days without lost time accidents. This achievement was made possible largely due to AMG Segura, a safety program developed in 2019 aimed at raising awareness and mobilizing all teams, to strengthen awareness and behavior in relation to accident prevention and the execution of a safer operating routine. The program is part of the culture of AMG Brazil and is based on the values of safety, respect for people, and innovation.
At AMG, we understand the importance and the benefits of diversity in the workforce. As a global company with facilities in more than a dozen countries, AMG is home to an inherently culturally diverse workforce. We place significant attention on the diversity of our workforce and our Board structure because AMG believes that diversity is important to the success of our Company. A diverse workforce, built from the communities in which we operate, allows us to work effectively and efficiently. As a global company, we consider it crucial that our employees are in touch with local cultural customs and have an understanding of the business practices that are most appropriate for their work environment. Our leadership works effectively across cultural boundaries by providing guidance and support to our business units.
AMG assesses the diversity of its workforce in terms of gender and age. The multinational, and therefore multicultural, nature of AMG’s business means that ethnic diversity is significant, but it is not possible to define minority employees in every environment. Demographics within the organization, using data from our Environment, Social, Governance, Products Dashboard is shown below.
AMG DEMOGRAPHIC DATA | AMG GROUP | ||
---|---|---|---|
DIVERSITY TYPE | UNITS | 2020 | 2021 |
Gender Diversity | % Male | 81 | 84 |
% Female | 19 | 16 | |
Age Diversity | % Under 30 | 18 | 17 |
% 30 to 50 | 53 | 54 | |
% Over 50 | 29 | 29 | |
Women on Management Board | % | 0 | 0 |
Women on Supervisory Board | % | 33 | 33 |
Women in Management | % | 21 | 19 |
Our leadership recognizes the importance of a diverse composition of the Supervisory Board and the Management Board as a general principle, particularly in terms of gender. AMG adopted our Diversity Policy in 2017, in which we outline our objective of having at least one-third of the seats on the Supervisory Board and the Management Board be held by each gender. The Supervisory Board will continue to look for suitable female candidates for the Management Board in order to meet all the diversity objectives as outlined in its Diversity Policy, as soon as reasonably possible.
AMG continuously shows consideration for our diversity objectives by maintaining a proper balance of nationalities to reflect the organization’s transatlantic structure. Additionally, we connect diversity commitments with our recruitment, retention, and succession planning strategies for both the Supervisory and Management Boards. In 2017, the Management Board deployed measures to attract and maintain a diverse workforce within our business units, including linking incentive payments for unit managers to make meaningful progress toward diversity targets.
In addition, in view of new legislation in the Netherlands concerning gender diversity in the composition of supervisory boards and management boards that became effective on January 1, 2022, the Management Board has initiated the creation of a robust plan supporting diversity with appropriate targets within the AMG Group going forward with the objective to increase diversity over time wherever appropriate. One of the measures adopted in 2021 was the creation of a Diversity Council that reports directly to the CEO, who has invited Ms. Dagmar Bottenbruch of the Supervisory Board to provide feedback and advice on diversity policy. The Diversity Council comprises primarily female members of AMG’s senior management and staff. This Council renders ongoing advice to the Management Board and the management of the units on how to monitor, enhance, and increase diversity on a variety of levels within the AMG Group.
AMG LITHIUM – DR. VERA NICKEL — HEAD OF R&D BATTERY MATERIALS
Vera Nickel, who joined AMG Lithium in 2018, is one of two female leads at AMG Lithium’s lithium solid-state battery research and development team, after serving for more than 10 years in similar positions in the lithium industry. She heads the group whose goal is to develop innovative battery materials in close cooperation with our customers to be used in next generation lithium-ion batteries, most notably solid-state battery systems.
When you listen to Vera, you will immediately recognize her passion for the chemistry and the materials she strives to develop to the next level. The reward of these activities will be a contribution to novel lithium-ion batteries with enhanced properties in terms of energy density, performance, and last, but not least, safety.
For Vera, successful development work is always a result of professional teamwork. In the development of new innovative materials, progress but also setbacks happen. Learning from failures is as important as consistently deliver good results, and a successful leader must be able to moderate these situations.
Once a new battery material is developed and tested in self-built battery cells, the next important step is to scale its production from lab size to pilot plant quantities. Our new pilot plant for the production of lithium sulfide and solid electrolytes is one of Vera’s major tasks. She set the team’s goal to ramp up quantity and assure quality same time. The design of a sustainable and resource-efficient process is in line with AMG’s ambitions for a comprehensive ESG.
AMG believes that maintaining enduring and healthy relationships with the communities where we work is important to our success around the world. Some of AMG’s businesses have operated for more than a century, have employed generations of families, and are a significant component of their communities and local economies. At AMG, we feel a responsibility to our local communities as well as the global community to work toward a sustainable future.
GK ANCUABE GRAPHITE MINE – PRIORITIES
GK operates the Ancuabe Graphite Mine in the Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique. Cabo Delgado is one of the poorest provinces in one of the poorest countries in the world and is severely lacking in terms of infrastructure and public services such as hospital and schools.
Seventy percent of the Company’s work force is from the villages close to the mine, making the Company the largest private employer in the district.
In order to improve the living conditions of its local employees and to benefit the local population GK Ancuabe Graphite Mine focuses its social program on three villages Nangume, Natocua and Muaguide. Over the years, the Company has supported these three villages in the areas of education, agriculture and health.
In September 2019, a meeting was held in which the Company, the local communities and the local authorities agreed on the priorities for the Company’s social program for the period 2020 to 2022. The focus areas in order of priority are:
- The rehabilitation of schools (one in each village);
- An agricultural support program;
- The construction of a creche (childcare center).
The first school that was upgraded under these priorities is the Nangume primary school. GK constructed a new building with three classrooms and furnished the classrooms with desks and benches. GK also had a water well installed with a water supply system for the school including tanks, and a solar power pump. A new toilet block was built and connected to the new water supply. The existing toilets were renovated and the original school building was repainted.
The new classrooms and water supply of the Nangume school were inaugurated by the Ancuabe district administrator on May 20, 2021.
One of the ways we contribute to sustainable communities is by providing consistent and competitive employment opportunities. We offer fair wages and the opportunity to work for a company that treats its employees equitably and ethically. Our Company performs activities in parts of the world where human rights abuses have been known to occur, but as discussed in the Business Ethics section, AMG makes every effort to ensure there are no human rights abuses at our facilities and we monitor our supply chain for human rights risks, including human trafficking. In terms of supporting human rights, we embrace and promote a diverse and inclusive work culture. By offering gainful career opportunities and compensation that can exceed average local wages, AMG helps enable our communities to thrive.
BOGALA GRAPHITE LANKA PLC (BGL) – EDUCATION
A special training and development program is in place coordinating with leading universities and vocational training centers in Sri Lanka. Under this, priority is given to students graduating from universities, and knowledge sharing in the fields of exploring, extracting, and providing graphite-based solutions. BGL has introduced internship programs to develop employees and enable them to gain professional experience. In addition, scholarships are awarded by BGL to children of employees who choose to pursue higher education at universities in Sri Lanka.
In addition to contributing to the local economies and communities where we operate, AMG invests in our employees by providing training and opportunities for career advancement. Through these investments, AMG maintains an effective workforce that has been trained in the health, safety, and technical skills required to do its critical work. This training provides our employees with life skills that can be used beyond AMG and can contribute to the betterment of our communities. We also encourage our employees to volunteer within the communities where they live and work. Although limited by the impacts of COVID-19, in 2021 AMG employees contributed 596 volunteered hours to supporting their communities. In addition, $52,000 in community outreach was spent on various causes in the communities where we operate.
AMG VANADIUM – COMMUNITY OUTREACH
AMG Vanadium is committed to its local community and regularly participates in opportunities for community outreach. In 2021 AMG Vanadium and United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial, and Service Workers International Union (USW) Local 5050 partnered on a community service project to benefit those in need in their community. Together they collected non-perishable food items and money, which was donated to three local food pantries. In addition, AMG Vanadium donated 125 pounds of sausage to the local Salvation Army food pantry. The sausage was processed from a hog AMG Vanadium purchased from a local 4-H member at the 2021 Guernsey County Junior Fair Sale.
AMG takes steps at all facilities to limit and mitigate our environmental impacts in our communities. For example, by focusing on our Brazilian tailings dams, we are investing in the environmental health and safety of our communities while reducing our overall business risk. In the United Kingdom, AMG recently switched to a renewable power grid for our operations, helping to decrease the local air emissions associated with traditional energy production. On a local and global scale, our enabling technologies contribute to significant CO2 emissions reduction. AMG will continue to foster long-lasting, productive relationships with our employees and communities.
AMG BRAZIL – CHARITABLE EFFORTS
AMG Brazil maintains a strong social commitment to the region where it is located. We value the local culture and work to foster trust and mutual respect between our employees, their families, and the surrounding communities where we operate and live. We recognize that the way to strengthen and develop our local community is by reinforcing shared ties and working alongside local people to achieve a common goal. To maintain this relationship of partnership and trust, periodic meetings are held with local leaders and associations, which keep us informed of local concerns and needs. AMG is also committed to prioritizing the hiring of local employees. Our job vacancies are posted publicly via social media for local institutions and leaders, and internally through our communication channels.
To strengthen our role in local communities, AMG organizes several initiatives and campaigns throughout the year, which includes Christmas campaigns to collect food and toys, blood donation campaigns, and other activities through our corporate volunteer program, Connection of the Good. AMG also makes charitable donations to local organizations as needs arise.
AMG – QUINGDAO, CHINA – COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Quingdao Kropfmuehl Graphite Co., Ltd. (QKG) has made a social commitment to its local community. QKG prioritizes local culture and is building a relationship of trust and mutual respect. QKG helps support local disabled persons and has also donated money to build a road in a local village. QKG also prides itself on building long-term relationships with its employees. More than 85% of its employees have worked for QKG for more than 10 years, and the local government has awarded QKG with the honor of “employees’ most satisfied employer.”