Our safety culture

The health, safety and wellbeing of our people, contractors, business partners and customers is our priority. We have a life safety culture of 'people protecting people' which reflects how safety is embedded in all aspects of our operations. Everyone is expected to play their role in creating workplaces that keep us all safe.

We have a diverse risk profile which ranges from, and includes high-risk construction activities, to operating 42 Westfield destinations that attract hundreds of millions of customer visits each year, to low-risk corporate activities in our support offices.

Monitoring safety performance

We actively monitor our operational risks by conducting quarterly asset risk register reviews across the portfolio confirming all identified risks have detailed mitigation plans in place and ‘high’ and ‘very high’ risks have adequate oversight.

Operational teams review performance monthly. Our end of month reporting confirms key safety initiatives and actions are closely monitored and adequate resources are allocated to address any emerging trends.

Detailed reports and analysis are tabled at the Audit and Risk Committee and the Executive Risk Management Committee.

Our extended life safety team and Executive Life Safety Working Group regularly meet to assess trends and emerging themes as well as sign off and monitor strategic life safety plans.

To monitor safety performance, we use TRIFR (total recordable injury frequency rate) which shows injuries per million hours worked by our people, as well as SafeWork Australia’s recommended safety metrics which focus on injury consequence.

Fostering a ‘speak up’ culture

We are committed to providing a safe workplace. We have zero tolerance for sexual harassment and take a zero-tolerance stance on proven breaches of the Code of Conduct.
Fostering a culture where our people feel they have the freedom to voice any concerns about what they see or hear in their daily work is important.

We have a Whistleblower Protection Policy for people to escalate critical matters they believe constitute unethical, unlawful or improper conduct potentially involving Scentre Group, including through Scentre Whistleblower – a confidential and anonymous online portal. This policy applies to our people, suppliers and employees of those suppliers.

Our people are required to complete an annual refresh of the online Code of Conduct training and our key operational teams attend annual Compliance Seminars where case studies related to the Competition and Consumer Act, Conflict of Interest, Fraud, Discrimination, Sexual Harassment and Bullying feature strongly.

We regularly engage with our suppliers and their employees who perform work on our sites, through contract management meetings and team briefings. Our Supplier Grievance Management Policy, which sets out our approach to managing grievances raised by suppliers and their employees, sits alongside the Whistleblower Protection Policy, and has been implemented across our centres and development sites.

Support for our people

We have partnered with Assure Programs to provide all team members and their family members with an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) they can access on a voluntary, free of charge and confidential basis.

The EAP covers many aspects of mental and physical wellbeing including counselling services, financial coaching, legal advice, nutrition and diet coaching, a dedicated Indigenous cultural assist free call number, 24/7 emergency support and critical incident management services.

Find out more

2023 Responsible Business Report – our annual Responsible Business performance report about our material responsible business topics including achievements, targets, progress, future priorities and case studies.

2023 Responsible Business Data Pack – comprehensive responsible business data sets supporting our responsible business approach, progress against targets and GRI references.