SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2021

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People

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Employee health & safety

At the workplace, our approach to occupational health and safety is based on continuous improvement and risk elimination. Strict safety policies are in place, and responsible behaviour is endorsed by our code of conduct.

We provide training and run internal campaigns to increase awareness of safety and related topics. In 2021, Covid-19 remained a challenge to our business, and the health and safety of our employees remained a top priority.

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Occupational health and safety

EPS provides continuous training on health and safety. This is organised at the country level, and training is adapted to the local context whenever required.

To continuously improve the prevention of accidents, EPS has been working towards the introduction of ‘safety alerts’ in 2022.

Accidents at the workplace are discussed with all employees to examine root causes and to avoid similar accidents in the future. These insights are written down, translated and shared across all countries; in this way depots can learn from each other.

By improving the communication within and between our depots, we can avoid accidents from happening.

In 2021, EPS was ISO 45001 certified; this is the global standard that focuses on occupational health and safety management systems.



We aim to further roll out ISO 45001 certification across our depots and countries. At the beginning of 2022, the depot in Massalaves (Spain) also received a BREAAM certificate, a leading global certificate for sustainable buildings.

EPS operates most of its own depots directly while LPR outsources its service centres to external service providers. However, all our service providers need to comply with our guidelines on employee health and safety. Across EPG, we closely followed the constantly changing rules and regulations about Covid-19 across Europe last year.

Through the implementation of business continuity plans and country-specific measures, we were able to successfully continue our operations.

Advanced depots and
service centres

To drive efficiency and circularity, EPS and LPR are continuously investing in new and more modern depots.

EPS opened one new depot in Lisbon (Portugal). In the early months of 2022, three additional depots opened in Porto (Portugal), Oslo (Norway) and Helsinki (Finland). These depots are equipped with state-of-the-art technology, are semi-automated and run at a high level of efficiency. Portugal and the Nordics are new countries with washing depots.

Last year we conducted an extensive risk assessment for the depot in Lisbon, and we adapted our operations to comply with national laws and legislation. This required a great deal of time and effort.

To contribute to the health and safety of our employees, we have been working towards reducing repetitive work such as the opening, closing and de-palletising of our trays. This is a continuous improvement process. At EPS, most of the depots make use of semi-automated processing. In 2021, we increased automation at our depots in Munich (Germany) and Beckov (Slovakia). 

 

In 2021, LPR opened several new service centres, mainly in regions where we are growing. We opened new service centres in the Nordic countries, for example in Denmark and Finland, and in Eastern Europe, for example in Slovakia and Czech Republic.

The service centres range from small locations for the return of pallets to larger locations that also have in-house repair facilities. After Brexit, new locations were needed in the UK to facilitate pallet flows and to manage the need of large quantities of ISPM15-treated pallets for import and export between the UK and the EU.

For this reason, we opened five new service centres and then relocated some of our centres to larger and modern facilities, for example in the London area and the Birmingham area. In other regions, service centres were also transferred to larger and better equipped facilities, such as in Dublin (Ireland) and Munich (Germany).

New service centres are equipped with automated and ergonomic workstations, often with solar panels to generate green electricity.

Wellbeing

For many of our employees remote working continued in 2021, as did our efforts to stay connected with each other and maintain a good work-life balance. EPG is currently investigating how to accommodate a good work-life balance also in the future, taking into account possible pandemics or potential lock-down restrictions.

We want to create an environment where employees not only live our values in their own work but are also vigilant about identifying potential concerns, and confident about speaking up in such situations.


Employees can express any concerns regarding misconduct by using the Speak-Up line on our intranet or by using our whistle-blower policy. It is possible to report incidents anonymously. There is also a whistle-blower policy in place, and employees can discuss their worries confidentially with counsellors across the organisation. 

To stimulate employees to remain active, the Euro Pool Sports Challenge also continued. In 2021, a total of 154 employees registered a total of 18,006 hours and 26 minutes of training time. This includes a range of activities, including running, cycling, swimming, walking, cross-fit, skiing and skating.

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