Health & Safety

Everyone has the right to a safe working environment. This has been recognised the world over and as a global Group, our operations have to comply with a wide range of different legal and cultural imperatives. Naturally, practices and procedures will vary from one facility to another, but the core requirements remain the same.

These core requirements are fully explained in our Corporate Guidelines for Health, Safety and Environment, which are used by all our administrative offices. In addition, our larger administration facilities and the Group's small number of production sites have comprehensive risk, health, safety and environmental management systems coordinated by local facility management.

The Group's health and safety management also focuses on travel security as well as health, safety and precautionary measures related to communicable diseases such as avian flu and SARS.

Below are some recent health and safety initiatives within the adidas Group:

Major incident response

Our new Group-wide 'major incident response' policy sets out clear definitions, responsibilities, actions and the internal and external communications needed to handle major incidents effectively. Its purpose is to minimise risks towards our employees and our business at any level at any time.

HIV-AIDS policy

In 2006 the adidas Group launched a Group-wide HIV-AIDS policy which is available to all employees via the company's intranet site. The policy is based on guidance from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and field testing by the adidas Group liaison office in Thailand. It contains:

General guidance on HIV-AIDS
An employee guide
Guidelines for HR managers on workplace care and support.

Online legal safety training

Under German labour safety law, our Headquarters in Herzogenaurach must train its employees at least yearly on workplace health hazards and safety measures. Department supervisors are responsible for implementing this training.

The adidas Group intranet now offers online courses on emergency procedures and fire safety measures as well as guidelines for office and monitor ergonomics. Each course takes only 30 minutes, and the programme is very flexible with regards to when and how much of it can be undertaken. Within one month of the launch of the training programme, we had already trained one third of the workforce on legal safety requirements.

Production safety training

Together with the Textile and Clothing Trade Association, 22 senior managers from our Scheinfeld production site and the warehouse in Uffenheim, Germany, were trained on their special responsibilities for safety at work in a one-day workshop. Topics included:

The legal safety obligations of a supervisor
How to draft a hazard analysis
Effective training of production employees.

Practical exercises in small groups completed the workshop.

Safety Day

Every two years, a Safety Day takes place at all German locations. The day is organised by the Labour Safety Committee together with the police, the trade association, the health insurance and local businesses. For this year's Safety Day, we supported the prevention campaign 'Skin Care', and the day's events centred on healthy eating and road safety.

With more and more employees cycling to work, 'Pimp my Bike' was this year's main topic. A bicycle obstacle course was set up so that people could test their cycling skills. The police demonstrated how to deter bike theft, and explained the importance of having safe brakes and proper lights and wearing the right protective equipment.

The day's programme closed with practical examples about the hazards of multi-outlet power strips (common in most office kitchens) and with obligatory fire-fighting drills.