Health & Safety

Protection of people, our environment and assets is important to our business and a key to our success. The provision, maintenance and continuous improvement of a safe and healthy work environment is one of the company's prime responsibilities. It is Foster Construction's policy that each of its employees shall be provided with a safe and healthy place to work. To achieve this policy, the company is committed to complying with all relevant legislation, regulations, codes of practice and safe operating procedures and to making every practicable effort in the area of injury prevention, hazard identification and control, health monitoring and health promotion. This is reflected in the following:

  • In-house Health, Safety & Environment Manager
  • Own internal Health, Safety and Environment Management System
  • Weekly site audits & toolbox talks
  • Membership of Site Safe

Foster Construction's track record with Health and Safety is one of the best in the industry over a long period of time. Foster Construction is proactive and works with the Worksafe New Zealand to ensure our workplaces are as safe as possible.

Foster Construction supports the participation of employees and other nominated representatives in the development of health and safety practices, and is committed to a process of consultation.

Reducing injuries, incidents and related insurance costs assists Foster Construction to meet its social responsibilities in its pursuit of sustainable development.

Foster Construction has met the Secondary Level requirements for ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices.

Enviro-Mark®

Foster Construction has been a member of the Enviro-Mark® Programme since Sept 2007. The Enviro-Mark® Programme is a national initiative, sponsored by 24 councils in nine regions throughout New Zealand which helps businesses improve their efficiency through sound environmental management practices. The main objectives of the programme are to assist businesses to reduce energy consumption, minimise waste, water and resource use where possible, effectively saving considerable costs for businesses.

Enviro-Mark® NZ is a global standard that evaluates environmental performance against tough external benchmarks. In New Zealand, there are five levels an organisation can achieve: 

  • Bronze: Compliance with the most commonly applicable environmental and health and safety legislation. 
  • Silver: Production of an appropriate environmental policy, built upon a determination of environmental impacts. 
  • Gold: Effective monitoring of targets and objectives to achieve continuous improvement. 
  • Platinum: Evidence of a fully operational Environmental Management System (EMS). 
  • Diamond: Correction and improvement driven by a proven internal audit programme. 

Foster Construction’s long term objective of joining this programme is to achieve the ISO14001 standard for our Environmental Management System. This significant award is highly prized by those companies who have received it.  
  
In New Zealand, 40% of waste that goes to landfill sites comes from the construction industry. This is not sustainable and we (the construction industry) must change the way we do things.