AW Hainsworth Awarded ISO Health and Safety Accreditation

We are proud to announce that we have been accredited with ISO 45001:2018, which focuses on occupational health and safety in the workplace. ISO is recognised worldwide as a respected standards body, and this standard focuses on “improving employee safety, reducing workplace risks and creating better, safer working conditions”. This reinforces our commitment to our workforce by ensuring we provide our employees a healthy and safe place of work.

The project to achieve ISO 45001 has been in progress for two years, and has been a thorough process of staff training, documentation, risk assessments, emergency preparedness, tightening our COSHH controls, PPE management and maintaining the legal register.

It culminated in two assessment visits from an auditor, an intensive period of evidencing, checking and formulating plans to implement corrections. We finally received the certificate in December 2021, and will be assessed every year to maintain this accreditation.

Mark Liebrand, Quality Systems Technician (pictured left), and Richard Hepplestone (pictured right), Health, Safety and Environment Manager, have led the project, which has involved every department across the mill.

Mark and Richard stand in front of the AW Hainsworth gates with the ISO 45001 health and safety certificate

What does this accreditation mean for our employees?

“Put simply, we are ensuring that everyone gets to go home safe to their families. But more than that, it is a cultural shift at AW Hainsworth, getting our team to buy into health and safety and care for each other”, commented Mark Liebrand.

“We are seeing benefits as a result of this process, there is a greater awareness around the mill and more conversations happening about health and safety.”


What does this accreditation mean for our suppliers and customers?

“We think this proves our commitment to our employees, to continuous improvement and to maintaining high standards, which benefits the people and companies we work with”, Richard Heppelstone said. “Our partners want to know that we care about our workforce, this is one way we can prove that.”

“A continued focus on protecting our workforce ultimately protects the supply chain, which makes us an efficient and reliable partner. It’s an added layer of confidence in the AW Hainsworth brand.”

We will add ISO 45001 2018 to our other certifications, ISO 9001, ISO AS9001D, RWS and UKAS, and customers are welcome to request a copy of our audit reports. Congratulations to Mark, Richard and the team on this positive achievement.