LeiriaShopping

Sonae Sierra has just become the first European company to obtain the Health and Safety certificate in the construction management of a shopping centre, accordingly to the OHSAS 18001 norm (referential to Risk at Work Prevention Management, developed by an international consortium of standardization and certification entities). LeiriaShopping's certification reinforces Sonae Sierra's commitment in this area, particularly because it focuses in the construction stage, which involves risks from the point of view of Health & Safety and during which sector statistics show a prevalence of accidents.

This certification recognizes the quality of the Health & Safety system implemented in during the construction management of LeiriaShopping, allowing the organization to identify and control the health and safety risks on site, to reduce the accident potential, to contribute to the fulfilment of safety norms and to increase productivity in general.
OHSAS 18001 is a norm which validates a Management System (just like ISO 9001 and ISO 14001), oriented towards Health & Safety at work, being a tool that allows companies to manage and control their performance levels in these areas, according to the companies own objectives, politics and action plans.

In order to obtain this certification, all workers were involved in and made aware of all Health & Safety issues, which was achieved by implementing a 'direct' participation system through systematic consultation of all workers during the setting of safety rules (Workers' Representatives for Safety were present in Safety and Environment meetings, and there was also a suggestion box on site to receive the several proposals).

The benefits from these measures show not only at accident level reduction and on workers' training, but also at a financial level, with decreasing of indirect costs related to Health & Safety conditions at work involved in the construction work, through systematic identification of improvement opportunities.

HSA is proud to be the responsible entity for the accompanying and implementing of the Health, Hygiene and Safety Management System on site, which has now been certified.