We have a vision of being known as having the safest operations in the world. Achieving that vision will require all associates to share a commitment to safety, integrity, honesty, respect, and legal and ethical behavior. Every Goodyear associate at every level of the organization has a personal responsibility for safety, which means they are expected to report unsafe work concerns and are empowered to stop work if they believe a task is unsafe.

Governance of our operations, including performance, systems maturity and compliance to internal and external requirements, is a critical aspect of our process. Globally, we have a strategy deployment process where objectives cascade from senior leadership to regional operations to the site level. Our monthly operations review process maintains accountability to the process by monitoring performance and progress to our objectives. Another example of governance includes our legal compliance audit process. We use third parties skilled in the identification of environmental, health and safety (EHS) risk to audit our manufacturing sites on a regular basis. In 2022, 24 of our global facilities were audited to ensure ongoing compliance to EHS regulations.

Goodyear’s EHS Policy underscores the principles that guide us toward continuous EHS improvements. In 2019, we implemented our enhanced EHS Management System aligned to ISO 45001 across all customer-facing operations, including retail and field service support businesses. Additionally, 19 facilities are ISO 45001-certified, along with the 47 facilities that are certified to ISO 14001. 

Plant Optimization (P.O.) is Goodyear’s manufacturing operating system that is built on the foundation of People and Environmental Care (PEC). Associates are meaningfully engaged in EHS through PEC and interact with other P.O. pillars to continuously build sustainable capabilities. One of the ways our associates learn more about P.O. is through our e-learning courses. These courses provide an understanding of the system. From 2020 to 2022, more than 15,360 associates participated in the self-paced, e-learning courses.

Between 2020 and 2022, more than 650 associates completed the formal, intensive P.O. Academy with virtual and in-person events increasing the positive impact that trained and engaged associates have on EHS. Overall, between 2020 and 2022, we saw associate engagement through either participation in the P.O. Academy or through the completion of the e-learning modules increase by 26%. As part of PEC, associate teams around the world organize and participate in activities that support identifying and eliminating operational hazards while building internal capability to develop projects and implement solutions to identified risks.

Performance

Goodyear measures our safety progress through both leading and lagging indicators. In 2022, leading indicators included corrective actions completion; ergonomic risk reduction; industrial hygiene improvements; EHS management system maturity; associate engagement; Corrective Action/Preventative Action (CAPA) related to audits, inspections and near-miss incidents; and near-miss incident reporting. We also measure Serious Injury (SI) and SI Potential; Total Incident Rate (TIR) (injuries that require medical treatment above first aid and restricted/lost-time injuries); contractor injuries; and first-aid injuries.

Reliable data and easy-to-use technologies are vital to EHS decision-making. We have created internal processes to provide reliable data and invested in industry leading EHS management system software and mobile tools that generate real-time data analysis. This allows us to drive decision-making that supports our strategic goals.

All incidents, including injuries, illnesses, near misses and property damage, are investigated. Causes are then identified, and corrections developed and implemented. These are captured in our EHS Data Management System for internal escalation, sharing of lessons learned, analysis and data reporting.

We reduced our TIR in 2022 from 2.23 to 2.05. Unfortunately, we did experience 38 serious injuries, which we define as injuries that are permanently life altering or life threatening. We remain committed to take actions needed to further our goal of eliminating all serious injuries and fatalities in our workplace. We will continue to learn and build maturity in SI prevention, and teams throughout our global footprint are committed to reaching our goal of zero.