FLEET CASE STUDY |
Raising safety and environmental issues among all employees and their families will result in a cultural change with major benefits for companies and the wider community. That’s the view of Nestlé Waters Direct, a subsidiary of Nestlé Waters, which in turn is part of the global Nestlé Group, which employs more than 250,000 people in over 50 countries and operates a total fleet of 30,000-plus vehicles. Nestlé Waters Direct, which supplies water in containers that fit on coolers in offices and businesses in 11 countries in Europe, including the UK, has pioneered a multi-faceted road risk programme.
| “Neglecting the environment and safety can only result in negative consequences for everyone around us and for us personally” |
Core to the programme is the KISS (Keep It Safe and Sustainable) communications initiative, which has been designed to provide an easily understood acronym and platform for launching various safety and environmental initiatives throughout Nestlé Waters Direct. The first KISS week was held this year with special programmes each day designed to involve workers and their families with an emphasis on the environment and health and safety. These included a day highlighting safety in the car – with messages on vehicle maintenance, always wearing seatbelts, never drink and drive, drive defensively and protect children all conveyed – and an eco-driving day. Nestlé Waters Direct analyst Andy Whyte took part in the eco-driving day and says: “My usual driving borders on the aggressive and was probably not the most economical.
I tested the KISS eco-driving guidelines for a week as I travel 100 miles a day to and from work. I was amazed to discover that by adopting the techniques such as: controlling my braking/acceleration, keeping my top speed down to the legal limit and changing up gears as soon as I could, I was getting another 40 miles out of every tankful of petrol. With at least 2,000 miles travelling a month, this worked out at £20 a month in savings.
“An added benefit of adopting these driving techniques is that I’m a calmer driver and that’s helping me relax on long journeys and not suffer from the odd bout of mild road rage. This has only added five minutes to my journey time.” Joe Kirby, general manager, Nestlé Waters Direct, says: “Awareness and attention to safety and our environment is as important at home as it is at work. If we behave and carry out activities in the KISS fashion at home and we become teachers and role models to others, then we are more likely to become consistent practitioners at work.
“There is no substitute for carrying out activities safely and in a sustained manner as part of our daily routines, especially in high-profile businesses. Neglecting the environment and safety can only result in negative consequences for everyone around us and for us personally.” Building on the KISS principle, which also sees cards and posters being distributed to staff in 10 languages, Nestlé Waters Direct has developed a programme called SHARE, which is based on the premise that “Sharing is Caring” through responsibility, recognition and sustainability.
It involves SHARE visits to locations by trained facilitators to discuss, reinforce positive elements and set improvements where needed for safety and the environment. Nestlé Waters Direct began its road safety focus with a pilot scheme in late 2004 and since then the company has seen insurance savings in the UK market. Across its 11 European markets – the safe driving project started in the UK and is being rolled out across all countries, with Poland the latest to embrace the initiative – the company operates almost 1,600 vehicles and last year they clocked up 30.2 million kilometres.
Since the launch of the programme, Nestlé Waters Direct has recorded a 13% reduction in reported incidents. Simultaneously the number of reported incidents per one million miles driven has dropped. Managing road safety, which the company identified as one of its biggest societal, environmental, business, legal and financial risks, also embraces the use of Interactive Driving Systems’ Virtual Risk Manager, which includes online risk profiling of at-work drivers; an assessment of driver attitude and behaviour through an initiative called “One More Second”; the use of CrashCount – an on-line crash analysis tool to understand collision data; and the introduction of an on-line management information system to monitor and improve driver safety.
Next year will see Nestlé Waters Direct have a major focus on eco-driving – the company has already been involved in the Department for Transport’s Safe and Fuel Efficient Drivers (SaFED) project (RoadSafe: summer 2006). Additionally, a detailed country-by-country collision reporting system has been established to allow benchmarking and year-on-year comparisons.
