An HSE management system without a structured internal audit programme cannot prove to be as efficient as it should be.

A strong internal audit managerial team was set up at Sanofi-Aventis. It has taken advantage of the different cultures that helped form the Group. The audits are carried out with the collaboration of specialists who know the auditing techniques inside out, with specialists in the fields of Health, Safety and the Environment, central experts or experts already present on the plants, and experimented HSE managers. All were professionally trained to carry out audits.

An average audit usually takes a week. The regulations and standards of the Group are reviewed as well as their implementation, and it is ascertained that they are well understood by the various companies. Thanks to the teams’ technical experience, it is also possible to add a “best practice” dimension to this audit.

The resulting information after an audit is systematically commented on for the teams of the site that was audited so as to make sure that the reviews are well understood and that the subsequent plan of action is appropriate.

This is when the first continuous improvement procedure starts: the people in charge on the site take the remarks into consideration within a hierarchical action programme and give an account of them in the following months.

At the same time, the HSE Central Management analyzes the different audit reports and is then able to regroup and sort out the reviews by major types of cause. This systematic approach triggers the second procedure of continuous improvement, the one which is going to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the Group’s HSE management system and of its implementation.

The combination of both procedures contributes to maximum strength to our commitment to Responsible Care: a rigour in the on-the-site follow-up of corrective measures, some anticipation in preventive actions while allocating resources for the real problems that need to be solved and exchanging best practices from site to site.

The alliance of a structured system, an enlarged network of competent auditors, a continual feedback of the information from audits, and of a double follow-up of the measures undertaken by the companies and the Group constitutes the real driving force of HSE prevention.