In 2008, there were 199 cases of work-related injury or illness that resulted in days away from work, compared with 272 cases in 2007.

On November 27, 2008, a Kimberly-Clark employee with 32 years of service was fatally injured by contact with energized equipment at our tissue mill in Mobile, Alabama. Kimberly-Clark is working cooperatively with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as the agency investigates this tragic incident. Based on our preliminary investigation, Kimberly-Clark has taken appropriate actions and reemphasized to our people the importance of key safety principles and practices.

K-C is making several fundamental changes to improve companywide safety. We are joining other industrial firms in focusing more closely on events that pose the greatest risk of major injuries or deaths.

Safety professionals at K-C and a growing number of global companies are questioning the established theory that preventing the highest frequency incidents, even if they are minor, leads to fewer of the most severe injuries and fatalities. Previous efforts to reduce our reportable incident and severity rates have not eliminated fatalities. K-C recognizes the need for a different approach.

We have identified eight categories of sentinel events that could result in a fatality. A sentinel event is an injury, damage to property, near miss, or unacceptable behavior with the potential to cause a fatality or catastrophic loss.

The first seven categories apply to our manufacturing environment and the last applies companywide. They are:

• Falling objects
• Mobile lifting equipment
• Falls
• Electrical contact (arc flash)
• Contact with energized equipment
• Confined space operations
• Fires and explosions
• Transportation

We have started the first phase of a companywide campaign to prevent fatalities by using hazard recognition and data monitoring to identify sentinel events.

During 2008, we also expanded our Global Occupational Safety and Hygiene (GOSH) team. There are now representatives in Argentina, Mexico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and in Neenah, Wisconsin, and Roswell, Georgia, in the United States.

We are in the process of updating our GOSH Policy and internal website. The revised website will help employees to better understand and address safety issues, and offer easy access to additional safety resources.

Safety standards and regulations can also differ around the world. We have been improving safety at our Klucze mill in Poland since we acquired it in 2003. We have installed safety guards around a key section of the tissue machine, and are introducing safe access control systems for each area of the machine, to address risks identified in a recent assessment.

Safety compliance

Our New Milford mill in Connecticut, U.S., was inspected and fined $9,000 by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in February 2006 for allowing tissue dust to accumulate on internal building structures, and for not installing electrical equipment appropriate for a dusty environment. We paid the penalty and have implemented the corrective measures specified in our settlement agreement with OSHA. We fulfilled the requirements of the settlement agreement in October 2008 and the enforcement action is now resolved.

The facility has since led the rest of the company – and the industry – in implementing a new combustible dust risk assessment and controls.

In our 2007 Sustainability Report, we included information on an enforcement notice received at our Everett mill in Washington, U.S. We appealed this notice, and on March 7th 2008 the Hearing Office for the Washington Department of Labor and Industries, Division of Occupational Safety & Health, issued a Corrective Notice of Redetermination that repealed the $4,550 penalty.

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