Tortosa reduces its accident rate and improves the quality of its products

The Ercros factory in Tortosa reduced its general accident frequency rate by 63% in 2019 – which measures accidents between its own and external personnel (with and without sick leave) for every million hours worked – compared to 2018; In addition, there were no accidents among its own personnel, more than 100 people. These good results are a reflection of the commitment of the center's staff to occupational safety and prevention work.

Regarding the quality of the products, its index improved by 74% compared to the previous year. The quality index measures the number of tons of products affected by nonconformities over the number of tons sold. In the case of Tortosa, 99.9% of the manufactured products were considered optimal by their customers.

In 2019, at Ercros as a whole, the general accident frequency rate fell by 36% compared to the previous year and stood at the lowest value in the last 10 years.

The Tortosa center belongs to the Ercros intermediate chemicals division and is the third largest producer in the world and the only one in Spain of polyols (pentaerythritol and dipentareritol), products used in the manufacture of paints, printing inks and lubricants. It also produces sodium formate, used in the tanning industry and as antifreeze at airports. In 2019, the production capacity of the pentaerythritol and dipentaerythritol plants increased by 5,000 t/year to reach a capacity of 35,000 t/year; it has also increased the capacity of the sodium formate plant by 3,000 t/year to reach 23,000 t/year.

Likewise, this center houses the R&D department of the intermediate chemistry division, responsible for launching the innovative ErcrosGreen+ and ErcrosTech resins onto the market; the first has emissions as low as those of natural wood and the second includes technical resins that offer maximum flexibility to adapt to any design challenge.

The Tortosa factory is registered in the European EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) register. Likewise, it has approved its environmental management system, according to the ISO 14001 standard; quality, according to the ISO 9001 standard, and prevention, according to the OHSAS 18001 standard (in the process of migrating to ISO 45001).

Ercros' performance in all aspects of sustainability has earned it the Platinum classification awarded by the EcoVadis international rating, obtaining a score of 77 out of 100. With this score, Ercros is among the 1% of companies with this rating. better compliance with environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria.