Our Environmental, Social and Governance policies
We comply with strict health, safety, and environmental regulations when carrying out our projects. That’s how we maintain a safe and sound place of work. Democo Group ensures that its employees comply effectively with all applicable rules. For this purpose, each company has developed quality, safety and environmental policy statements.
Safety is a top priority in the course of our work. Democo Group is determined to do everything possible to ensure the safety of our people, our supply chain partners, the public, and our projects, and expects its employees to do the same. After all, each accident is one too many. The annual targets for 2023 focus on active chain responsibility and set the goal of being entirely accident-free (AFR=0). In addition to active compliance monitoring and reporting, we run comprehensive campaigns on security awareness and personal responsibility. In 2021, construction company Democo won the Safety Award for its efforts around safety.
Democo Group requires that unsafe work situations and occupational hazards are rectified, which means they need to be reported immediately to the direct supervisor. We carry out annual safety assessments as part of our corporate objectives and our employees’ own objectives, through the performance and assessment cycle. Indeed, the various boards of directors place our safety figures at the top of their agendas.
All companies within Democo Group commit to a Group policy statement regarding quality, safety, health and environment, which is renewed annually. We also carry out safety monitoring using the certified SCC checklist (Safety, Health and Environment Checklist Contractors). The SCC requires all operations staff to have the Basic Safety diploma (“VCA Basic” training) and operational managers to have follow-up training (Safety for Operational Managers, VOL-VCA). The associated certificate is valid for ten years and shows that employees are aware of the applicable safety requirements. We hold regular safety days to promote communication between supervisors and employees.
Democo Group has instituted five unbreakable safety links across all construction sites. These links form a robust safety chain, a testament to our proactive approach in fostering a culture where safety is paramount.
These safety links are visibly and prominently displayed at all construction sites, accompanied by multilingual visual aids and symbols for universal understanding. They have also been integrated into our standard site setup plans, ensuring that safety is not only a policy but a deeply ingrained value within our organization.
Democo Group has a Check-in-at-Work system across our building sites. This system is designed to enhance site security and operational efficiency by enabling accurate, real-time tracking of all individuals entering and leaving our sites, thereby ensuring that access is restricted to authorized personnel only. This badge-system allows site managers to have immediate access to information on who is present on the site at any time, aligning with our policies to ensure a safe working environment.
We’re also implementing test sites with facial recognition. This technology prevents the sharing of access badges, directly addressing and reducing the risk of unauthorized access attempts. This is particularly important for managing access for subcontractors and ensuring compliance with our subcontracting policies. The system’s design considers privacy and data protection principles, with facial images and personal data stored separately to safeguard employee privacy.
Our Safety App represents a key component of our safety infrastructure, installed on the smartphones of our employees. This application enables employees to easily document and report any assessed violations of safety guidelines. Utilizing the app, workers can snap a photo of a possible safety breach and instantly submit it to the prevention service and site management for follow-up. Its intuitive and user-friendly design significantly contributes to its effectiveness in promoting a safe work environment.
Each report is systematically logged and assigned a unique tracking number for follow-up, ensuring no concern goes unaddressed. Importantly, the individual who submits a report receives feedback on how their report is being handled, reinforcing a culture of transparency and accountability. It also offers real-time learning opportunities about safety protocols and best practices, enabling immediate and valuable feedback to help foster a culture of safety awareness and continuous improvement.
The prevention advisors of the internal prevention and protection department have the following assignments as part of the dynamic risk management system:
Each project is subject to a risk management analysis that considers ESG issues alongside construction and financial elements. ISO standardisation is applied as a guide. Our prevention advisers are responsible for its application and implementation in co-operation with the project teams and other services.
The security of our buildings, sites, materials and the data of our employees and stakeholders is essential to Democo Group, its employees and stakeholders. Our security company, AEW Security, plays a key role in this as part of our group and is one of our regular partners responsible for the security of our buildings and sites. Our sites always have a perimeter fence, with a turnstile gate where we register all those present using the CIAW system and use a badge system. Our offices are only accessible with to people with employee badges or accompanied by an employee.
The overarching IT department deals with IT security, data security and the implementation of GDPR guidelines at all our companies. More about this can be found under “Privacy and Protection”.
Supervisors should be notified of any unhealthy work situations as a priority, so that they can address them immediately. However, we view employee health in the broader context of wellbeing at work. Our HR department has provided appropriate measures and guidelines for all our companies. Reports can always be made internally to a supervisor or HR, or externally through a confidential advisor at IDEWE. The following topics are addressed:
At Democo Group, we constantly examine and manage the impact of our activities on the environment to ensure sustainable operations and prevent environmental impacts. We work with our partners to improve the understanding of environmental issues and promote good practices. More about this can be found in the “Sustainability Principles” section.
For the standardisation of our environmental policy and timely reporting of any environmental impact, Democo Group works with the ISO 14001 environmental management system, covering the following aspects:
Besides health and safety, other environmental aspects are also covered by the certified SCC checklist (Safety, Health and Environment Checklist Contractors).