What is Sims Metal Management's Health and Safety policy?

Health and Safety is our number one priority - this is non-negotiable and there are no exceptions. The safety and wellbeing of our staff, contractors and visitors is paramount.

We have a comprehensive and exhaustive Health and Safety policy endorsed by our board of directors.

How is Health and Safety managed within Sims Metal Management?

Each operating division has its own Safety, Health, Environment and Community (SHEC) committee which monitors incidents, provides direction and works in conjunction with OH&S professionals. Every health and safety incident, no matter how large or small, is recorded within our comprehensive safety system. This allows us to analyse the possible causes of incidents and implement mitigation strategies to ensure that they are not repeated.

What Health and Safety initiatives does Sims Metal Management support?

Health and Safety is everybody's business at Sims Metal Management - it is a shared responsibility. Initiatives undertaken include peer-to-peer observational behaviour audits, continuous risk assessments, initial staff induction and ongoing Health and Safety training. We have also recently engaged DuPont Safety Resources to conduct an extensive review of our OH&S practices.

What is Sims Metal Management's record on Health and Safety?

After several years of little or no change, it is pleasing to note that the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate – being the number of lost time injuries recorded multiplied by one million and divided by the number of hours worked - for the Group dropped from 3.2 in fiscal 2010 to 2.7 in fiscal 2011. Equally, the number of Medically Treated Injury Frequency Rate, similarly defined dropped from 14.2 in fiscal 2010 to 12.4 in fiscal 2011.

Why does Sims Metal Management consume energy and how much does it consume?

While Sims Metal Management is one of the greenest companies in the world, we still consume energy in the course of collecting, processing and redistributing recyclable materials. In fiscal 2011, our total energy consumption was just 3.3 petajoules.

What is Sims Metal Management's policy on energy use and carbon?

We are committed to reducing our energy consumption and we have implemented a formal energy policy. We have established energy teams in all of our divisions tasked with achieving efficiency gains and investing in new measures to do more with less.

The energy consumed by Sims Metal Management can be converted into an equivalent carbon footprint. It is our policy to measure this footprint continually. We recognise the need to invest in renewable energy, off-sets and the latest technological developments in order to find the most efficient ways to reduce our carbon footprint on an ongoing basis.

How large is Sims Metal Management's carbon footprint?

In fiscal 2011, our carbon footprint was 307,337 tonnes, a reduction of 2% on our fiscal year 2010, and roughly 2% of the 14.7 million tonnes of carbon emissions saved by using just the steel product that we recycle.

What is Landfill Management Services (LMS) and how does it contribute to carbon reduction?

LMS Generation, the Company’s 50% owned green energy provider, continues to be a leader in carbon credit generation from biogas in Australia, with two new renewable energy projects coming on stream in the state of Victoria, as well as the largest expansion to a landfill gas project in the last decade at Eastern Creek, NSW. These projects bring LMS’ total installed capacity to 33 megawatts of base load renewable electricity from organic waste.

During fiscal 2011, the projects owned by LMS generated more than 290,000 MWh of renewable energy and more than 900,000 NSW Greenhouse Abatement Certificates (NGAC’s), as well as generating enough renewable electricity to power more than 47,000 homes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

How is Sims Metal Management preparing for the future?

We will continue to examine ways to better reduce our energy consumption and carbon footprint. We will be investing considerable time and money into renewable energy, off-sets and the latest technological developments.

Why does Sims Metal Management consume water and how much does it consume?

We use water for dust suppression in our shredders and in some of our yards. In fiscal 2011, we used 1,126 Megalitres of water, down 8% on fiscal 2010.

What is Sims Metal Management's policy on water use?

Our policy is to conserve water wherever possible. Many of our yards are equipped with stormwater retention systems, where captured run-off is used for operational purposes.

What are Sims Metal Management's plans for the future?

We will continue to minimise our water consumption by capturing on-site water for re-use wherever possible.

Why does Sims Metal Management generate waste and how much does it generate?

We are a recycling company, not a waste processor, and non-recyclable residue must be removed from our operations. In 2011, we separated just under 2 million tonnes of waste from the more than 14.2 million tonnes of recyclables processed in our plants.

What is Sims Metal Management's policy on waste?

We work with manufacturers in an attempt to reduce the amount of materials that cannot be re-used. Unfortunately, this is not easy as many manufacturers are using cheaper and more complex materials to keep the cost of consumer goods low in the first place. This, in turn, reduces the value of the recovered materials.

What are Sims Metal Management's plans for the future?

We will continue to develop and invest in sophisticated recovery systems to maximise the amount of recyclable materials recovered to reduce waste. New technology developed by us allows us to now recover plastics that only three years ago went to waste.

What is Sims Metal Management's policy on environmental compliance?

We have a strict environmental compliance policy and continue to pursue environmental accreditation of our facilities.

At Sims Metal Management, we:

• Comply with relevant statutory requirements.
• Regularly monitor its environmental performance, objectives and targets.
• Recognise that environmental care is of equal importance to every other facet of the company's management and operation.
• Promote individual commitment to safe and environmentally responsible behaviour through the training and education of all staff.

What environmental compliance accreditation does Sims Metal Management hold?

We hold a number of environmental accreditations. Most of our facilities comply with ISO9001 and we have a continued program of ISO14001 accreditation. All Sims Recycling Solutions facilities have achieved ISO14001 accreditation.

Does Sims Metal Management have an environmental compliance audit programme?

Yes, Sims Metal Management has had a comprehensive environmental audit programme in place since 1991. Our internally developed intranet-based audit system has been widely recognised as being 'beyond best practice', and allows our environmental progress to be tracked continuously.

Overall environmental performance is monitored by qualified environmental managers on a monthly basis, with summary reports provided to the Sims Metal Management board of directors quarterly.

What are Sims Metal Management's environmental compliance plans for the future?

Driven by a desire to operate beyond compliance at all levels, we will continue to develop our environmental systems. We have comprehensive environmental plans for all sites that are linked to our financial systems and continued development.

How many people does Sims Metal Management employ and in what countries?

Sims Metal Management and its affiliates employ just over 6,500 people at over 260 sites on five continents. Our combined workforce displays a very high degree of cultural, economic and social diversity. This ensures a balanced and capable workforce which is a key component of our sustainability philosophy.

How does Sims Metal Management support its people?

Management, supervisory, professional and technical skills development is a key component of Sims Metal Management's human resources strategy. Numeracy and literacy programmes, certificate training in metals and engineering and technical skills development courses are offered to our staff on an ongoing basis.

Performance reviews and career management are also provided to our employees and all staff are involved in formal bi-annual assessment programmes.

Does Sims Metal Management have a formal hiring program?

Each major region within Sims Metal Management implements and manages its own programmes for the hiring and development of graduates.

What is Sims Metal Management's commitment to sustainability?

Sims Metal Management started sustainability reporting in 2006 and remains strongly committed to reporting on a number of key environmental, OH&S and community areas. These, together with reporting on fiscal and corporate governance parameters, form the basis of our response to the benchmark guidelines (G3) as set out in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

What is the GRI?

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a large multi-stakeholder network of thousands of sustainability experts worldwide. The GRI produces the G3 Guidelines which are the cornerstone of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. These Guidelines outline core content for reporting and are relevant to all organisations regardless of size, sector or location. They are the foundation upon which all other GRI reporting guidance is based. The G3 Guidelines outline a disclosure framework that organisations can voluntarily, flexibly, and incrementally adopt. The flexibility of the G3 format allows organisations to plot a path for continual improvement of their sustainability reporting practices.

What corporate reporting does Sims Metal Management undertake?

The Company participated for the fourth consecutive year, in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP7). The CDP is an independent not-for-profit organisation which holds the largest database of corporate climate change information in the world. The data is obtained from responses to CDP’s annual information requests, issued on behalf of institutional investors, purchasing organisations and government bodies. Since its formation in 2000, CDP has become the gold standard for carbon disclosure methodology and process, providing primary climate change data to the global market place. Further details are available from the CDP website (www.cdproject.net). Click here to view the Company’s submission is available on its website. Further, Sims Metal Management was nominated as one of the 10 Carbon Leaders in the ASX and NZX50.

Sims Metal Management also participated, for the second time in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, following our pleasing assessment last year, where we topped 53% of our assessment categories and exceeded the waste industry average in more than 75% of them. While Sims Metal Management scored comparatively well in most categories this year again, we did not make it into the index as a result of a significant increase in global participation.

Despite its participation in previous years, the Company did not, because of changes to some of the FTSE4Good assessment criteria, participate in this index this year. However, the Company intends to participate again in the coming year. We also co-operated closely with a number of external assessment and environmental research organisations, such as TruCost and Vigeo, who nominated us as the leading performer in our sector.

Most pleasing was the selection of Sims Metal Management as one of the “Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations” at the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland for the third year in a row.

 To view our report for the Australian EEO Act, please follow this link: Fiscal 2011 EEO Public Report.