Fiven Annual Report 2020

Fiven Annual Report 2020 parties shall comply with national and all other applicable laws, prevailing industry standards and other requirements to which company subscribes. When laws, industry standards address the same issues, the most favorable provision shall apply to Fiven people. Management is aware of the commitment may not be limited to the requirement of the national law. In 2020, Fiven developed a set of business ethics procedures addressing the domain of corruption prevention, trade association participation, gifts, embargoes and conflict of interests. These procedures were deployed to all Fiven employees. In 2021, Fiven will develop a whistleblowing system for all persons (employees, customers, suppliers, other stakeholders) being able to warn the Group about any potential business ethics breach. During the year 2020, the Fiven principles, called the “Fiven 5”, namely Respect, Integrity, Solidarity, Trust, Transparency have been deployed to every Fiven employees People Fiven believes in equal treatment of people in respect of ethnicity, religion, belief, disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, and the Group recognizes and respects the uniqueness of everybody working in Fiven. The work environment in Fiven is considered positive. The typical employee of Fiven has several years in service for the company. Production facilities are viewed as corner stones in their local communities. At year-end the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) were 426 compared to 493 end of 2019, these figures are not considering the non-consolidated entities in Venezuela. As a consequence of the pandemic Fiven has had to align produc- tion capacity in the Group and to reduce the level of manning and operating costs accordingly. The silicon carbide industry has traditionally been male dom- inated, and the Fiven management works actively to extend the share of female into various position. The female popula- tion accounted for 11.1 per cent of the total FTE at year-end 2020 compared to 11.8 per cent of the total FTE in 2019. In the extended management team, the female population is at 33.3 per cent end of 2020 compared to 28.5 per cent in 2019 and the female share of Fiven ASA Board of Directors comprises 50 per cent at the end of 2020 compared to 33.3 per cent in 2019. Health, Safety and Environment In Fiven it is ‘safety first,’ the company is methodically implementing sophisticated EHS, prevention programs and procedures in order to mitigate inherent risks of the Acheson process as well as risks associated with SiC processing. There is a number of KPI’s measured, analyzed and reported and the company has developed the ‘Fiven Roadmap’ including a number of standards that should be applied in all Fiven plants. No matter where the plants are located, all personnel is fol- lowing the same Fiven standards. The ‘Fiven Roadmap Label’ concept has been launched in 2020, entities should achieve a certain level of compliance on the main 15 standards out of 29 included in the Fiven Roadmap. All entities have performed a self-assessment of the Fiven RoadMap and formal audit will be organized in 2021. In 2020, management particularly focused on ensuring a healthy working environment for all our employees and the strictest hygiene measures against COVID 19 were applied. In total, over the year Fiven had 22 employees (18 in the Brazilian plant and 4 in the Belgium plant) infected by the virus, fortu- nately with none or minor symptoms. Every time one employee was confirmed positive to COVID 19, Fiven organized a massive testing campaign for all the employees of the entity. Unfortunately, accident rates in 2020 increased and statistics showed a frequency rate (defined as the sum of lost time accidents and non-lost time accidents divided by the working hours multiplied by 1000000), at 3.66 in 2020, compared to 2.69 in 2019 (full year). There were 4 lost time accidents in Norway and one lost time accident in Brazil. The events in Fiven Norge’s facility were linked to hot water projection (hot water in boots), stepping out of a mobile lifting device resulting in a twisted ankle, weather conditions (fall on ice) and to sharp equipment parts. The event in Barbacena plant was linked to a mainte- nance task performed on specific spare parts of a shaver. The short-term sickness rate for the period shows 1.9 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent in 2019. In connection with its HSE policy published in 2019 where it is clearly stated Fiven ambitions to turn the company into a green SiC company, Fiven has set up in 2020 its Environmental roadmap with the long-term objective to be Net Zero emissions by 2050. This includes also the establishment of Mid-terms objectives being part of the plan to reach Fiven’s 2050 ambitions. In this context, Fiven has implemented a bi-annual reporting on its emissions (scope 1 & 2). In addition, a quarterly review is performed with the different entities and Fiven management to review the progress of the projects initiated to reduce the impact of the Group’s activities on the environment. Local Anchorage No matter where Fiven operates, the Group takes into account the environmental and social issues of local communities. Board of Directors’ Report   21