The Health & Safety of our staff, partners and the communities in which we operate is our number one priority.

Effective health and safety management is at the core of our business, and we have consistently maintained a robust workplace safety program and state of the art safety technology. We are proud of our record on health and safety across our global manufacturing operations and we employ processes and procedures to ensure we comply with legislation and minimise the risk of harm.

All of IQE’s employees are encouraged to take an active role to ensure workplace safety and they are mandated to report all safety observations and incidents. They regularly undertake safety audits, risk assessments and regular awareness training sessions.

IQE’s Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) group has responsibility for maintaining workplace health and safety programs as well as ensuring the programs continual improvement and employee professional development planning, including training and accreditation of competent EHS professionals. These positions include Regional EHS Managers and site-based EHS Managers, Engineers and Coordinators. Our Regional EHS Managers act in high-level advisory roles, identify global best-practices and oversee the adoption of strategic EHS initiatives in line with applicable legislative requirements, wherever the Group operates. The site-specific roles are directly responsible for localised EHS program implementation and operations at each IQE site.

Health & Safety Policy

IQE’s policy for conducting its business in a safe and responsible manner is embodied in its global Health & Safety Policy:

The Company’s approach to health and safety will be based on the identification, control, and, where possible, elimination of risk to persons and the environment. This policy provides a framework for the setting of occupational health and safety and process safety objectives by senior management, in consultation with workers. These objectives are intended to ensure the organisation’s continual improvement in health and safety performance, striving to be incident and injury free.

IQE is committed to:

  • Providing safe and healthy working conditions for the prevention of work-related injury and ill health;
  • Ensuring health and safety considerations are integrated into the business planning and decision-making processes;
  • Fulfilling any legal and other requirements, identifying and implementing best practice wherever practicable;
  • Eliminating hazards and reducing occupational health and safety risks;
  • Providing all employees, contractors and visitors with relevant information, operational controls and regular training on safety requirements to enable them to conduct their activities safely;
  • Providing a positive safety culture in which every employee, contractor and visitor feels free to speak up about non-conformances or unsafe situations or any other health and safety related issue;
  • Consultation and participation of workers, and their representatives, on occupational safety and health and process safety matters;
  • Continual improvement of the occupational health and safety management system.

View our Health and Safety Policy

Compliance with Legislation

Compliance with Health & Safety legislation is critical to our global businesses and we adhere to the laws of the jurisdictions in which we operate. These include legislative directives from the Health and Safety Executive (UK sites), Occupational Health and Safety Administration (US sites) and Ministry of Labour (Taiwan site). In the UK, two sites are regulated under the Health and Safety Executive’s Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) regulations. In the US, one site is regulated under OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) regulation.

To keep up-to-date with continually evolving legislation, IQE maintains membership of a number of professional bodies which provide a good source of reference and support. This includes regular updates from the British Safety Council, British Standards Institution, Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment in the UK, the US National Safety Council, the US National Fire Protection Agency, the US Federal Register, the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute, Safety and Health Technology Center.

The safety of all of our employees has always been IQE’s highest priority and the company has consistently maintained a robust workplace safety program and state of the art safety technology. We are proud of our record on health and safety across our global manufacturing operations and are confident that our safety processes will continue to be strengthened through our cooperation with HSE, OSHA and other territorial regulatory agencies.

IQE is also actively involved in industry-wide initiatives, working with industry associations and proactively registering under regulatory directives such as Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and Global Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) based Hazard Communication. Furthermore, IQE monitors global chemical control activities (e.g. Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive and Toxic Substance Control Act) to ensure continued customer confidence and supply-chain compliance.

To ensure we are meeting our regulatory requirements as well as industry-wide initiatives, IQE employs appropriately qualified EHS professionals, reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, and these EHS professionals have access to third-party professional advisors as required.

Health & Safety Management

IQE’s Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) group has responsibility for maintaining workplace health and safety programs as well as ensuring the programs continual improvement and employee professional development planning, including training and accreditation of competent EHS professionals. These positions include a Global EHS Director, Regional EHS Managers and site-based EHS Managers, Engineers and Coordinators. Our Global EHS Director and Regional EHS Managers act in high-level advisory roles, identify global best-practices and oversee the adoption of strategic EHS initiatives in line with applicable legislative requirements, wherever the Group operates. The site-specific roles are directly responsible for localised EHS program implementation and operations at each IQE site.

IQE’s EHS Group is organised to effectively promote and increase the awareness of Environment, Health & Safety directives, strategic initiatives and legal obligations as well as advising each IQE site and the Board accordingly, with a universal goal to:

  • Minimise risks of injury at work;
  • Ensure legislative compliance;
  • Assist in creating and monitoring safety practices.

The Global EHS Director and Regional EHS Managers also oversee site trend analyses and undertake regular conference calls to discuss major issues and site developments. Regional EHS Team face-to-face meetings and data collation culminate in Periodic Board Reports, demonstrating major trends in EHS activities and comparisons with industry best-practice and National Statistical averages, which help identify strategic initiatives.The EHS Director and Regional EHS Managers also work directly with the site management teams in order to implement those strategic initiatives and best practices and continually improve company safety.

The EHS group continues to be actively involved in industry-wide initiatives, working with industry associations and proactively registering under regulatory directives such as REACH and GHS-based Hazard Communication. The group also monitors global chemical control activities (e.g. RoHS, TSCA) to ensure continued customer confidence and supply-chain compliance.