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Audits and certification

Our audit programme requires all manufacturing and R&D sites to be audited. Internal auditors (who are certified as lead auditors against the international environment health and safety management standards: ISO 14001 and OHSAS18001) assess how well EHS management systems and standards are being implemented and how well our sites comply with key legislation. In 2006 we are revising the audit process to focus on significant health and safety risks and environmental impacts. The frequency of site audits will be determined by factors such as EHS risks, profile and performance.

At the end of 2005 we assessed the performance of all facilities (except small commercial sites) using self-assessment and internal audit. (We audited 33 sites.) The average score was 77%, but 3 sites achieved scores below 50%, which we regard as unacceptable. While the average score exceeds our target of 75% we will aim to correct unacceptable performance and continue to pursue further improvements to achieve best practice.

In 2005, two sites (in the US and Spain) achieved "leadership" scores above 90%, while a further seven achieved scores over 80%. See more on audit achievement.

The best performance on environmental issues was in air emissions, ozone depleting substances and waste management. Sites were generally weakest on biodiversity, risk assessment and self-auditing. Self-audit nevertheless achieved one of the biggest improvements over the year, along with process risk management.

Sites are required to develop plans to address any weaknesses and improvements identified in the audit. Auditors monitor sites’ progress in implementing the plans. In 2005 the EHS audit process and scoring system were further refined based on experience and feedback, including assessing auditors’ reports to ensure greater consistency. EHS auditing software is available on our intranet to help sites and auditors track progress.

EHS certification
At the request of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors, GSK has embarked on a programme to achieve ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certification. In 2005, three additional sites achieved certification to the international environmental management standard, ISO14001. Two of these also achieved certification to the international health and safety standard OHSAS 18001 bringing the total of dual certified sites to 16. One certified site left the GSK network. This means that 23 out of 89 pharmaceutical, consumer and vaccine manufacturing sites are now certified (6 sites are certified to ISO 14001 only) and one site’s utility area is certified to both. The certified sites are in China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, Kenya and the UK.

In 2006 we continue to work on increasing the number of certified sites by encouraging sites to volunteer for certification. We will also launch a pilot project to investigate the feasibility of certifying Research & Development sites. We will then be in a position to move towards global certification.

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