Contributing to improved health and safety outcomes for the community

• Our past partnerships with OneSteel promote safety awareness through the development of an annual safety poster campaign. Achieving excellent results in safety would be impossible without an effective and supportive communication program, and a number of years ago, Tomago Aluminium formed a partnership with OneSteel to develop a series of posters that depicted workplace safety and encouraged people to “choose” the safe way of working. Key findings from an evaluation of this campaign have showed the effect on family and mates was a major motivator for employees to choose to work safely. The posters are displayed at both Tomago Aluminium and OneSteel Market Mills sites and reach around 5000 employees from both organisations. They are also distributed to approximately 150 small and medium manufacturers as part of our commitment to sharing our safety knowledge with the wider community.
• An Engineering alliance promotes Prostate Cancer Awareness among employees and their families.
• We have a strong commitment to the Hunter Red Cross Blood service to aid the promotion of blood donation and provide ease of access to the donation service.
• Tomago Aluminium has partnered with the Hunter Medical Research Institute for many years and annually contributes to their research grants program. In addition to this we have made significant contributions to specific health research initiatives such as asthma and breast cancer.
• 2008 saw a new partnership formed with Kidsafe Hunter to promote values about early education and prevention in order to avoid hazards. Tomago Aluminium donated $25,000 to Kidsafe Hunter as part of its 25th Anniversary Launch in January 2008. This partnership also recognises our commitment to taking the message about safety to our families and the community.
• As part of early work conducted on Tomago Aluminium’s Fitness for Work Policy, all employees were required to attend information sessions around drug and alcohol use. At these information sessions employees were provided with information packs that enabled them to take home drug and alcohol education messages to share with their families, again extending our commitment to improved drug and alcohol education initiatives into the wider community.

Contributing to our environment

Tomago Aluminium remains committed to high standards of environmental protection - our environmental monitoring program is extensive and we employ state-of-the-art technology. We continue to contribute to environmental and greenhouse gas reduction measures.

Tomago Aluminium also demonstrates its commitment to a cleaner, greener environment through involvement in and partnerships with the Clean Up Australia Day Program, Port Stephens Council Schools Environment Awards, Hunter Wetlands Centre and our neighbours at the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens.

Tomago Aluminium has operated in harmony with its neighbour the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens for nearly the life of the smelter and continues to support its growth and development. Recognising the importance of the Gardens to sustaining growth and preservation of flora and fauna from the region, Tomago Aluminium made a special donation of $25,000 to the Gardens as part of its 25th Anniversary Launch in January 2008. This donation will enable the Gardens to continue work started as part of previous support shown by Tomago Aluminium.

Contributing to the charitable community

Tomago Aluminium remains committed to supporting the work and growth of various charitable, healthy lifestyle and cultural organisations in its community and over the past 25 years has donated more than $1million to such causes in the Hunter.

Since its inception, Tomago Aluminium employees (matched dollar for dollar by the company) have also raised more than $500,000 for local charities through an Employee Out of Pay scheme. In 2008, the recipients were the Hunter Branch of the Salvation Army and the Hunter Melanoma Foundation.

As part of its commitment to its employees and its community, Tomago Aluminium also provided special support to a number of employees whose homes and lives were seriously affected in the June long weekend floods of 2007. We also donated to CanTeen after its Newcastle-based Northern NSW Regional headquarters was completely destroyed and more recently completed an Employee Out of Pay Scheme enabling a total donation of $30,000 to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

Contributing to education

Through partnerships with educational organisations in the community such as the Hunter Institute (TAFE) we are able to support vocational education and training in the Hunter as well as recognise outstanding student achievement.

Tomago Aluminium also supports education and youth of the region through its structured work experience, apprentice and graduate programs.

Our supplier partnerships

Tomago Aluminium enjoys partnerships with more than 500 suppliers from the Hunter Region and in order to sustain and improve these partnerships conducts annual Supplier Event Awards. These Awards provide an opportunity for Tomago Aluminium to thank its key suppliers for their efforts throughout the year and keep them abreast of any changes to the organisation’s procurement strategy. The strategy is focused on working with suppliers to find better ways to deliver results through continuous improvement and innovation. It helps us to harness these partnerships to support and promote growth in our region.