Operations

Our Approach to Operations

At Axalta, we are committed to being good stewards of the environment by using natural resources efficiently to preserve and protect the communities in which we operate. We understand that industrial manufacturing processes can pose impacts to the environment and safety risks to our employees and others when not managed properly. Sustainable manufacturing is a focus at Axalta and part of how we do business. Our emphasis on sustainability extends to ensuring that we have safe and efficient operations, providing a guidepost for our behavior and a lens to measure our performance.

Our Environment, Health, Safety, and Security (EHS&S) policy provides the foundation under which we develop, market, manufacture, and distribute products and services globally. This policy is implemented through Axalta’s EHS&S Management System, our global program designed to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, internal standards for operations, management of potential environmental risks, and continuous improvement.

We operate all of our facilities using a common set of internal standards, as part of our EHS&S Management System, applicable for our business. These standards have been developed using a risk-based approach that will help advance our performance and build capability and consistency across all levels of the organization.

As we developed our EHS&S policy and incorporated elements of the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care®, Axalta has worked toward and achieved a global multi-site RC14001 certification in early 2016. This certification incorporates the elements of the Responsible Care Management System including product safety, process safety, and security, as well as the ISO 14001 certification, specifically related to our environmental stewardship program.

Next generation technology — expanded waterborne coating production facility in Jiading (Shanghai), China commissioned in 2015.

Environmental compliance

We aim to operate our business in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Since 2012, we have seen a significant reduction in operating permit deviations as a result of enhancing internal processes across our facilities and have maintained strong performance in operational discipline in this area.

In October 2015, our Mt. Clemens site in Michigan was recognized as a Clean Corporate Citizen for its participation in Michigan’s voluntary sustainability initiative. The Clean Corporate Citizen program allows regulated establishments that have demonstrated environmental stewardship and a strong environmental ethic through their operations in Michigan to be recognized. As part of its participation, the site has to report annually on its implementation of pollution prevention activities, environmental goals, objectives and targets, environmental regulatory compliance, and partnering activities within the communities.

Spills and releases

Axalta rates the significance of spills according to the potential severity they present to our employees, the environment, and the communities in which we operate. We also have established a protocol to record, document, and investigate spills in order to better understand how to prevent them. We regard spill prevention as an integral aspect of our environmental stewardship program. We use a number of factors to categorize our spills as “minor,” “moderate,” or “significant” such as the actual spill size, hazards of materials involved, potential off-site impact, containment, control of release, and others. Although spills have increased by 5 percent since 2013, we have reduced the number of significant spills. In 2015, we did not experience a significant environmental incident at any of our facilities.

We continue to work on improving our performance by continuous upgrades in operating controls such as engineering containment systems and level meters with interlocks, established investigation process for spills and releases, and good administrative procedures in our operating areas.

Spills

Spills