LAS VEGAS, NEV.—The National Mining Association (NMA) today recognized Peabody Energy for being the first company to be independently certified under its CORESafety^® system.

“This is a significant accomplishment by Peabody,” said Hal Quinn, president and chief executive officer of NMA. “The company not only embraced an approach to drive continuous performance improvement that went above and beyond what is required of it by regulations, but it analyzed where it could do better, developed a plan, recorded metrics and submitted the results to a third party auditor.”

CORESafety’s approach to mining safety and health emphasizes accident prevention using a risk-based management system the foundation of which involves leadership, management and assurance. Its objective is to have zero fatalities and a 50 percent reduction in mining’s injury rate within five years of implementation.

“Safety is our first value and core to our mission,” said Peabody Energy President and Chief Executive Officer Glenn Kellow.  “We are passionate about safety and have embraced best practices and management tools that advance safety within the lens of our longstanding Safety – A Way of Life system. By investing in our people, processes and equipment, we have changed the way in which we work, which is an important step on our journey of continuous safety improvement.”

CORESafety is a voluntary mine safety and health initiative developed and facilitated by the NMA. CORESafety participants agree to: commit to the CORESafety system; implement a functionally-equivalent version of the CORESafety safety and health management system; submit to NMA annual self-assessments of progress toward implementation of the CORESafety safety and health management system; and, if the company elects to become or maintain CORESafety certification, complete a third party assessment of its safety and health management system to verify that it is functionally equivalent to CORESafety and submit the assessment report to NMA. Peabody is the first CORESafety NMA member company to complete each step of this process.

Det Norske Veritas conducted the independent audit of three of Peabody’s mines.