COVID-19 Response

A key part of any company’s employee safety approach in 2020 and 2021 is supporting employee health during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Tronox acted quickly in 2020 to put additional protective measures in place, such as social distancing, masks, restricted employee travel, remote working, staggered shifts, temperature screening checkpoints, restricting onsite people to essential workers, and more robust sanitization and disinfecting procedures. These protocols have been successful with minimal cases of infections from close contact with another Tronox team member.

“This experience will live with everyone and make us more resilient for the next challenge or problem we face, knowing that when we come together, we will be successful.”

– Dylan Audeyev, VP – Global Safety, Health, Environment and Quality

As a global company, we have had to be responsive to changes in infection rates and protocols in all the countries in which we operate. For example, lateral-flow COVID testing has been put in place at our plant in Stallingborough, United Kingdom. We are testing staff once per week on entry and providing a quick turnaround result on whether they have contracted the virus. And, as vaccines have become available in many countries, we are following local guidance to encourage employees to get vaccinated.

Our employees’ resilience in responding to the pandemic is evident by our ability to keep operations going successfully. Several learnings and processes from the last year will become permanently adopted standards, such as increased global collaboration through video networking tools, a greater focus on physical and mental health, and elevated hygiene practices.

“The teams embraced the value of being adaptable, decisive and effective,” said Dylan Audeyev, VP – Global Safety, Health, Environment and Quality. “This experience will live with everyone and make us more resilient for the next challenge or problem we face, knowing that when we come together, we will be successful.”

Operational Safety

Tronox knows that we need strong management of our process safety to protect the health and safety of our employees and the communities in which we operate. Our employees and site management work diligently to operate safe, reliable and responsible facilities.

Contractor Management

In 2020, Tronox worked diligently across its integrated operations to align and improve the processes we use to support and manage our contractor workforces and ensure their safety and success. Currently, 85 percent of all Tronox employees and contractors complete training on our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct. In addition, we instituted a common training framework for those Tronox leaders who coordinate tasks and supervise work performed by contractors, which is then tailored in each of our regions to align with regulatory and local context. The supervisory trainings in 2020 were held in Australia, South Africa and the United States.

In addition, Tronox is migrating to a global vendor management platform to strengthen and improve the way that we partner with contractors. Both contractor partners and Tronox benefit as the system facilitates a common understanding of organizational expectations and site requirements and enables both parties to work together to enhance communication and improve understanding.

In particular, Tronox is focused on the guided collaborative pre-qualification process that seeks to understand the strengths and weaknesses of contractors in relation to safely delivering work. We hope we can identify and manage critical risks prior to work starting. The ultimate goal is once on site, all our contractors deliver work that is seamlessly integrated into the site operations, with dynamic assurance processes in place to ensure understanding of emerging risks, issues and challenges, so we can drive collaboration between Tronox and contract partners to enable resolution in the field.

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