Sonae Sierra achieves first in health and safety certification

Sonae Sierra has become the first European company in the shopping centre sector to receive the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001 certification for its Safety & Health management system. The OHSAS certification was issued by TÜV Rheinland, a German firm that specialises in certification on a multi-national basis.

Somewhat similar to the ISO 9000 which is a quality standard and ISO 14000 which deals with environmental management, OHSAS 18001 is specifically geared towards validating how a company manages health and safety in the workplace. The system functions as a tool to allows companies to manage and control their performance levels in accordance to the goals, policies and action plans set by the company.

Sonae Sierra, the international shopping centre specialist headquartered in Portugal, said it has developed a Safety & Health culture throughout the entire company and its shopping and leisure centres to minimise and control potential risks derived from its activity.

One of the main planks of Sonae Sierra's policy is the PERSONAE project, which aims to anticipate and prevent accidents that could befall employees and visitors at the group's offices and shopping centres. Ultimately the company is working towards a goal of 'zero accidents'.

News of the OHSAS certification came days after Sonae Sierra won the first EXPO REAL/PropertyEU Green Thinker Award at the EXPO REAL property fair in Munich. The award honoured Sonae Sierra as the real estate development company with the greenest strategy in Europe.

Sonae Sierra owns 48 shopping centres in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Romania and Brazil with a gross lettable area (GLA) of more than 1.9 million m². Currently, the company is developing 17 further projects and has 13 new projects in various phases of completion with a gross lettable area of 1 million m². The firm's shopping centres attracted 410 million visits in 2007.