2022 ESG Milestones: A Celebration of Progress

In 2021, we unveiled our ten-year environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy, which serves as a guiding force behind our 2030 Goals that Inspire. This strategic vision not only drives our company's long-term direction but also empowers us to make a meaningful and positive impact on the world.

In June, Covia released its 2022 ESG Report. This report highlights our performance on various topics and metrics that are relevant to our business. It's worth noting that this marks our 18th consecutive year of corporate responsibility disclosure. The report offers valuable insights into the progress of ESG initiatives throughout our organization.

To get a better understanding of Covia’s accomplishments over the past year and ongoing dedication to corporate responsibility, let’s take a look at three standout achievements that have played a crucial role in positioning us for continued success.

Building a Safety First Mindset 

Safety is a top priority at Covia. We take numerous steps to ensure that Safety and Health (S&H) remains a daily and consistent focus for all Team Members. We are committed to continuously improving, identifying, and integrating emerging safety standards and risk management practices to lower incident rates and improve the quality of life for our team.

We made strides in 2022 to help improve the safety and health of Team Members. We launched a series of safety initiatives to improve our year-over-year performance, including reinvigorating our safety bootcamps and workshops, and increasing participation in our Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM) investigations by our senior leadership teams. We’re pleased to note that as a result, our all-incidence rate decreased in 2022 compared to 2021.

As part of our continuing work to lower the number of jobs potentially exposed to respirable silica, we have identified and begun implementing capital projects to further reduce dust exposures moving forward.

Covia invested in several initiatives and programmatic improvements in 2022 to underscore the importance of maintaining a Safety First mindset. This included:

• Holding a mandatory, company-wide safety reinforcement event early in the year.
• Reinvigorating our Safety Bootcamps to provide detailed information on our S&H programs and other safety policies and procedures.
• Improving our S&H Workshops for members of our leadership team.
• Ensuring 100% of sites have an active safety committee.
• Holding our annual Safety Day to raise awareness among Team Members on critical S&H topics.
• Launching Safety Performance Scorecards to track monthly and quarterly metrics to drive continued safety and accountability.
• Team Members completing an average of 41 safety and health training hours.
• Achieving our target of having plant and operations managers conduct at least 5 in-field SLAM (Stop, Look, Analyze, and Manage) evaluations per month, resulting in 4,400 evaluations throughout the year.

For more details about our Social Impact goals and highlights from the past year, check out the full ESG report.

Environmental Management System 

Our dedication to operating sustainably is firmly embedded in our company culture. We understand the importance of managing our environmental impact and have adopted proactive policies that align with our environmental goals. Covia’s Environmental Statement outlines our comprehensive approach for protecting and preserving the environment.

To continue our commitment to environmental sustainability, we began rolling out a new Environmental Management System (EMS). The new system, which was deployed at five sites in 2022, enables improvements in overall environmental performance by providing:

• Enhanced predictability, consistency, and efficiency in
  managing our environmental obligations.
• Effective targeting and allocation of our environmental
  management resources.
• Proven frameworks for high-impact activities, such as pollution
  prevention, land management, and water usage.
• Standardized data collection and reporting mechanisms to
  effectively measure, monitor, and share progress with
  our stakeholders.

We look forward to launching our EMS at additional sites to expand on these benefits. For more details about our Environmental Stewardship goals and highlights from the past year, check out the full ESG report.

Corporate Governance & Ethics 

We value sound corporate governance practices and go above and beyond to exceed regulations and industry best practices – from conducting regular board meetings and third-party financial audits, to engaging with key stakeholders and tracking key performance indicators to ensure reliability and accountability throughout the organization.

In 2022, we introduced our cross-functional Community Action Plans (CAP) Steering Team, which established a formalized policy and process to ensure that all Covia facilities develop and submit an annual plan to engage with their local communities in meaningful ways. This policy requires each site to create a CAP local team with annual responsibilities, including determining who the key stakeholders are, and identifying and managing site-specific opportunities related to:

• Environmental initiatives
• Volunteer efforts
• Monetary support and in-kind donations
• Education and awareness activities
• Governance procedures

Once each site develops its annual plan, it is submitted to the CAP Steering
Team, the Director of ESG, and the site’s respective Vice President of Operations for review and approval. Additionally, sites are required to submit an annual year-end summary detailing the progress they made towards their CAP, any modifications made to the plan, and the rationale for each.

For more details about our Governance & Ethics goals and highlights from the past year, check out the full ESG report.

Driving Continued Progress 

2022 represented Covia’s first full year of measured performance against our goals, which we formalized in 2021. The learnings we gleaned throughout the year provided us with an opportunity to refine several of our programs and initiatives, strengthening our ability to meet our 2030 targets as we continue to build upon our achievements for years to come.

“In our second year as a privately held company, we delivered another year of substantial growth, allowing us to further invest in our long-term strategy. In 2022, this meant expanding capacity at several sites to capture new growth opportunities, reducing our environmental impact through targeted investments, and building new capabilities to drive innovation and operational excellence for those who rely on us — all while navigating a challenging economic environment.” – Andrew Eich, President & CEO of Covia.

See the report to learn more about our philanthropic efforts and how we continue to drive change in our organization and communities.