Safety, health and wellbeing

This year we joined the World Economic Forum's workplace wellness alliance, a consortium of companies committed to advancing wellness in the workplace. 

All our businesses in areas of high HIV/Aids prevalence enlist and train peer educators to raise awareness of HIV/Aids among their colleagues, the aim being to lessen the stigma of HIV/Aids and encourage voluntary counselling and testing.  Independent research in South Africa found that SAB (Pty) Ltd receives a fourfold return on its investment in HIV/Aids testing and treatment in terms of reduced healthcare and insurance costs, reduced absence and higher productivity.

The health and wellbeing of our employees and their families are a key concern and we adapt our wellness programmes to meet their changing needs. This year we piloted a new Wellness Development Programme for peer educators in Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania which covers sexually transmitted infections, hepatitis B and C, malaria and tuberculosis.

We aim to provide a safe working environment in our breweries, bottling plants and offices and have robust systems, including regular audits, for identifying and minimising the risk of accidents and monitoring and addressing incidents when they occur.  This year, better reporting on health and safety has resulted in noticeable improvements in health and safety performance in several markets including Hungary, Italy and Uganda.  That said, during the year we recorded 1,713 industrial injuries, 18% more than in 2011, largely due to an increase in injuries reported in Latin America in line with new reporting protocols.  Across our business, 17,735 days were lost through injury – a 34% increase on 2011 - also due to improved reporting.

It is with regret that we report 11 employee and contractor fatalities this year. Two of these related to accidents while undertaking maintenance or repair activities, five related to accidents involving vehicles and four related to robberies or assaults on our staff while on sales or trade visits. In each case we have undertaken an investigation and, where applicable, implemented measures to minimise the likelihood of such an incident recurring. We have also established a group health and safety working group, which will report to the group CARAC.