2017

Environmental, Health &

Safety Annual Report 2017

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Fastenal Company Environmental, Health & Safety Policy
Fastenal Company is committed to environmental protection and to providing a safe and healthy workplace for
all employees. We strive to integrate EHS considerations into all our business decisions, plans, and
operations.
As part of our commitment to the protection of the environment, we shall strive to prevent pollution, to reduce
waste and minimize the consumption of resources, to use resources responsibility and to seek opportunities for
increased energy efficiency. As part of our commitment to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace, we strive to
prevent work-related injuries and ill health by controlling risks using a hierarchy of controls.
In order to enhance our EHS performance, Fastenal Company shall identify EHS objectives to be attained in
order to continually improve our EHS Management System. Fastenal Company is committed to the fulfillment
of all EHS compliance obligations, including all legal and other requirements.
We believe that participation and involvement from employees and other interested parties in EHS
Management System decision-making processes will help us to achieve our intended outcomes. An important
objective of EHS Management System is the satisfaction of our stakeholders, which include:

• Our customers,
• Our employees,
• Our shareholders,
• Our suppliers,
• The communities in which we operate, and
• The environment.
This policy shall be communicated to all employees, and will be made available to our customers and other
interested parties upon request.

January 1, 2018

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Health & Safety Programs
With over 20,000 employees Fastenal Company continues to make strides in our Environmental, Health,
Safety & Security initiatives. As we focus on our programs we continue to see changes in employee beliefs,
attitudes, and results. A number of key areas continue to spearhead these initiatives and prove to be strong
indicators of our success.
Fastenal employees continue to have a high degree of participation in a variety of programs. With over
127,000 events measured in our business we strive to improve the quality of engagement our employees
experience with environmental, safety, security topics.
Training participation grew to over 81,433 completed modules. These trainings include over 30 topics ranging
from safe behaviors to compliance topics. This strong dedication and focus is a great reflection of our
employee attitudes towards safety participation. In 2017, the Fastenal EHS department made a number of
updates to their training modules to help drive “quality” of participation.

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Fastenal employees completed over 33,500 audits and inspections in 2017. This is a key area for continuous
improvement which helps Identify areas of opportunity to improve. EHS managers consistently visit branch
locations to support a variety of initiatives and reduce hazards that may develop. Fastenal management also
participate in a variety of site visits related to safety operations and driving safe behaviors. This participation is
key to supporting a safe culture.
One on one coaching by our management and
leadership continues to be a core focus to help
reinforce safe behaviors and accountability. In
addition, this participation creates stronger
relationships and an overall healthier business
between management and front line employees.
This ability to influence our employees across the
company provides a strong platform for reducing
losses throughout the company. Fastenal
management completed over 12,000 coaching and
observation opportunities.
At a high level these leading indicators appear
straight forward but provide a complex road map to
continuous improvement to engaging employee
behaviors and driving incident prevention. These
focuses combined with our audit and compliance programs help continuously drive support and engagement at
all levels of business.
As a result, our employee dedication and values improved the performance in our OSHA Total Recordable
Incident Rate (TRIR) by 9%. Fastenal employees also improved their Experience Modification Rate by nearly
13% to .48 by focusing on key risk areas. This strong improvement is a direct result of focusing on the high
impact areas of our business. The efforts of managers and employees at the line level have been a significant
driver to reducing high cost incidents.
In addition, our Days Away Restricted and
Transferred Rate (DART) improved by an additional
12.2% in 2017 versus 2016. All of our rates continue
to lead our industry by strong margin. Fastenal
utilizes key individuals in the field, with our EHS team,
and most importantly our HR team to quickly respond
and effectively manage thru the challenges and
complexity of incidents. Recently, Fastenal
implemented a tiered approach to performing
accident investigations to include various levels of
management depending on the severity. This has
helped improve root cause corrections to prevent
future incidents.

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Thru strong case management programs and a focus
on preventing severe incidents we’ve reduced our days
away from work and the amount of time employees are
on restrictions. In 2017 alone we added over 65,000
labor hours versus 2012. Overall, Fastenal has been
able to add nearly 270,000 hours of productivity since
2010. In addition, Fastenal has prevented more than
2,000 workplace injuries over that same time. These
prevention efforts help to improve moral, bring teams
closer together, and provide more opportunities for
sales and efficiencies. Most importantly by helping our
employees be safe at work it reduces the burden on
other employees when an employee would be missing
days of work as the result of an injury. At Fastenal,
safety truly is a team effort.

James “Ryan” Tucker

Corporate EHS Manager

ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) & 45001

(Occupational Health and Safety Management System)
In 2017, Fastenal implemented two new ISO programs: ISO 14001 (Environment)
and ISO 45001 (Safety) in an effort toward continuous improvement in each of
these areas. As an early adopter of the ISO 45001 draft standards we take pride
in driving progressive safety programs throughout our business. These programs
will assist the company in meeting the expectations of our customers and our
other stake holders.
With an all-encompassing ISO program we have been able to include many
existing practices our company values. This formal system has allowed
Fastenal to improve and focus on areas in an organized manner which helps
produce better results. These management systems have allowed
employees to provide feedback and participate in areas that may not always
a core focus for our business.
Finally, we strive each year towards these defined goals to drive value for all
stakeholders of our business.

Randy Parnow
Corporate EHS Manager
4

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

:

Environmental Programs
With over 2,600 branch, distribution centers and manufacturing locations, Fastenal’s presence is felt in many
communities. Ensuring and protecting the environment within those communities is foremost in our thoughts.
In combination with our ISO 14001 and third party auditors, Fastenal uses recycling programs, effective waste
disposal programs and extensive on-going employee training to help communities rest easy. Fastenal is also
committed to a number of objectives when it comes to environmental stewardship. These include targets such
as sustaining zero compliance related fines, improvement in environmental risk assessment audits, base line
reductions in areas of hazardous waste disposal, and improving fleet fuel efficiencies, as well as improvements
in recycling initiatives.
The secret to ensuring that these environmental
objectives are met with customers and
communities, lies within the ranks of Fastenal
employees themselves. When an employee joins
Fastenal, they are subjected to extensive training
from the time the New Employee Orientation
Program (NEOP) starts, until their tenure ends.
This includes initial NEOP training related to
handling and shipping of hazardous material, the
proper way to dispose of hazardous material, and
also includes ongoing departmental and EHS
training concerning what actions are appropriate in
various environmental scenarios. In order for
Fastenal to remain proactive and protect the
communities and customers that it serves, it is
imperative that employees are aware of the
environment in which they work and the situations which they may encounter.
Because we understand the importance our business has on sustaining a healthy community we offer training
and encourage participation in various environmental topics. In 2017, over 5,400 employees participated in
our Resource Conservation and Recovery Act training. Even though this is not required due to our limited
waste generating activities we strive to ensure our communities thrive for years to come.

Byron Livingston
Regional EHS Manager

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Emergency Management and Disaster Response
On September, 9 2017 Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys. The storm made its way north up the
coast of the state before finally losing hurricane strength 3 days later in Georgia. The following day, the
National Hurricane Center began monitoring another potential tropical storm that was on a likely path toward
Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 20th. The impact was catastrophic.
The unique challenge of preparing and responding to these types of events is the need to prepare and
protect our employees but also serve our communities to help them do the same. Some Fastenal employees
were fortunate to not be directly impacted by these storms. Many were in the position to provide support to the
areas impacted from Fastenal’s Distribution Center in Atlanta which serves the areas impacted by both
Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria. The efforts began before the storms made landfall to try to prepare our
branch locations to withstand any possible damage and for the most part were successful. Several locations
sustained a loss of power, telephone, and internet connections for days though. In areas of Puerto Rico, for
weeks.
The days leading up to the storm were busy and Fastenal employees continue to go above and beyond
by doing whatever it takes to support our response efforts. Our teams in the field brought in truckloads of
generators, bottled water, gas cans and other miscellaneous supplies. I can recall sitting at home on a
Saturday evening answering phone calls from sales people who were out in the field as the storm was less
than 24 hours from making landfall trying to source supplies for customers who were still in need.
Mandatory evacuations, road closures and ever changing road conditions required that we monitor road
conditions around the clock and make a number of contingency plans to get deliveries as close to the impacted
areas as possible. There were a number of areas in southern Florida that we were unable to make deliveries to
due to mandatory evacuations for a 24-48 hour period. To get ahead of this, we sent as many supplies as we
could to our transfer facility in Orlando to allow folks to come pick up product that they needed when it became
safe for them to travel. Employees worked tirelessly driving to places likes Atlanta and Tallahassee to pick up
loads and brings them back to Orlando. Members of our leadership even slept in their trucks to be available to
open the building for supplies when it was needed.
Fastenal employees are not just employees but a team of people who have a passion for safety and for
doing what’s right. It’s during times like these that we see so many people around us display that passion for
doing what’s right; helping to strengthen our culture and remind everyone of what’s so great about our people.

Sara Weaver
Regional EHS Manager

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Fleet and Transportation
In addition to over 20,000 employees
Fastenal maintains a fleet of over 7,500
company service vehicles and nearly 500
commercial motor vehicles that provide a
critical service connecting our customers and
our supply chain. Historically, fleet safety
represents a significant hazard for our
business and is why we take extraordinary
measures to ensure the health and safety of
our fleet employees. In 2017, Fastenal made
continuous investments in things like anti-
collision radar detection software. Fastenal
will be investing nearly 1.5 million dollars
over the course of 3 years to implement this
technology in our semi-vehicles. In addition,
we continue to improve the number of
vehicles that benefit from disk brakes across the fleet by over 30%.
Our DOT fleet drivers logged over 4,000 training modules last year which is an increase of over 30%. These
employees continue be the unsung heros in our business. As a result of their dedication, our semi-fleet drivers
have logged over 200 million miles with no fatalities from 2013 to 2017. That’s equivalent to 8,000 times
around the earth. Two of our transportation locations also logged 0 recordable injuries for all of 2017.
In addition, our pickup truck fleet logged nearly 100 million miles without a fatality in 2017. This speaks
volumes to our employees dedication to safe driving.

Kevin Larson
Corporate Traffic Manager

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

Summary
In recognition of our top performers this year in
environmental, health and safety we wanted to
extend congratulations to those areas that
excelled in one of three different areas. Perfect
Record Awards indicate locations that did not
experience a recordable injury for the entire
calendar year. Occupational Excellence
Achievement Awards go to performance that is
50% better than the industry average and finally,
Significant improvement awards are those areas
that reduced their severe injuries by over 20%.
Fastenal employees have achieved a great deal
when it comes to environmental, health and
safety intiatives. We thank our employees for
taking such great pride in living our company
values and driving improvements and efficiencies
to help reduce incidents and better our business.
We hope these improvements not only improve
our business but bring value to the families,
communities and customers we serve.

Dave Olson
Environmental, Health & Safety Director

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987

FASTENAL COMPANY | 2001 THUERER BLVD, WINONA, MN 55987