It is therefore a great pleasure to introduce our first stand-alone public Review of the management of Health, Safety and the Environment (HS&E) within our group. We are a global organisation, therefore the Review not only reflects the consolidation of our HS&E strategies into a single policy with underpinning standards and procedures but also describes some of the many environmental initiatives and improvements being undertaken at our operations around the world, as well as some examples of our involvement in communities.

Our task for 2000 and beyond is to integrate formal requirements and best practice into all our operations and to measure their impact.

We have a good record, but are committed to further improving our performance in HS&E and to benchmarking ourselves internally across our many sites and externally against our peers. We shall report our future performance to our shareholders, employees and the growing range of stakeholders who have an interest in our company and its activities.

The future success of any company is no longer linked only to its excellence in the market place and to a sound financial performance. Ethical investors, regulatory authorities, environmental groups, local communities and many others rightly insist that successful companies derive their success from responsible practices which demand respect for the environment and exemplary health and safety performance.

A growing number of our activities are already in line with the needs of sustainable development, we have a management committed to achieving our HS&E aims around the world, and I am confident that the measures we are now introducing will enable us to make considerable further progress towards our worthwhile goal.

Sir William Castell
Chief Executive

June 2000