The International Council on Mining & Minerals (ICMM) has released the report of the Health and Safety Conference held in Santiago, Chile, in November 2012. The conference brought together 19 companies, over 300 delegates and five chief executives to share lessons and learn from each other. Based on its proceedings, and enriched by in-depth interviews and post-conference feedback, the report highlights the importance of collaboration, culture and leadership. 

A common message, heard throughout the 19 sessions that took place, was that to successfully ensure the well-being of employees, contractors, their families and their communities, companies must put people first. It is people’s well-being that drives efforts to improve health and safety performance in ICMM, whose members have committed to seek continual improvement.

Other themes that emerged from the conference discussions were that:

• health and safety paradigms are shifting
• leadership is the primary enabler of good health and safety performance
• there is a growing willingness for collaboration and learning through sharing experience
• integrated well-being is both the concept guiding the development of processes, and the outcome of sound health and safety management.

All presentations, posters and remarks from CEOs are available at: www.icmm.com/health-and-safety-conference-2012