Incident Management

Our safety management focuses on prevention. Even so, safety-critical incidents cannot always be prevented. Across the Group, we promptly enter any incident relevant to safety, health or the environment in the IT system we use for sustainability reporting (SPIRIT). The reports are evaluated and measures tracked. Incident reports that offer cross-division or cross-site learning effects are processed and forwarded to any company units with a similar risk potential.

Employees in Germany are able to use the idea management system to quickly and easily report safety-critical situations. As a result, hazards can be avoided at an early stage before they lead to an accident. Safety-critical situations are also reported in all our other regions and recorded across the Group.

Every WACKER site has its emergency response plan detailing cooperation between internal and external emergency response teams and the authorities. Once a year, the plant fire departments at our largest sites, Burghausen and Nünchritz, conduct emergency drills coordinated with the local fire and emergency services. These drills provide a practical opportunity to rehearse a large-scale emergency response. Afterward, the exercise is analyzed to identify and eliminate any weak points. In the reporting period, the practice scenarios focused on fighting clouds of harmful substances and sealing defective piping, among other things. Training drills are regularly carried out at our major foreign sites, too, such as Charleston (USA) and Zhangjiagang and Nanjing (China).

WACKER’s plant fire department in Burghausen also trains fire departments from the local area. In addition, we invite fire departments operated by other companies and municipalities to our premises, where they can prepare their response to accidents involving hazardous goods. If necessary, all our plant fire departments – including those at the Nünchritz and Charleston sites – support local firefighters during large-scale emergency responses. Our plant fire departments were called out in this way once in 2017 and eight times in 2018.

TUIS: Accident Assistance

The German chemical industry established its Transport Accident Information and Emergency Response System (TUIS; website available in German only) in 1981 to provide assistance in the event of chemical accidents. WACKER was involved in this network right from the start. Today, TUIS comprises some 130 chemical companies, along with their plant fire departments and specialists (chemists, toxicologists, production experts, etc). Public services, such as fire departments, police and disaster control agencies, can contact TUIS for telephone consultation services or request specialized equipment or assistance from experts. TUIS is part of the German chemical industry’s contribution to the Responsible Care^® initiative. WACKER’s TUIS experts can be called on to assist with accidents involving our products anywhere in the world.