Social Engagement

INEOS employees cycle fifteen times around the planet to raise money for local charities

• More than 1300 INEOS employees took up this year’s Company-wide challenge to ride the Tour de France distance for charity
• Overall, teams from INEOS offices and manufacturing sites across the globe have raised €104,000 for local charities
• Their combined efforts equated to cycling 625,387 Km, more than fifteen times around the planet!
• Five teams from Grangemouth completed the challenge, meaning £10,000 will be distributed to local charities
• INEOS HR Director, Terry Banham, said, “This is a fantastic effort from our employees at Grangemouth.”

Employees from across the INEOS network of offices and manufacturing sites ‘saddled up’ for charity and have raised €104,000 for local good causes the chemicals giant announced.

By combining cycling for pleasure and daily commutes, teams of employees from across the world, including those in the UK were challenged to match kilometre for kilometre the distance ridden by the professional cyclists during each of the stages of the Tour de France race.

In total, 1325 employees covered a combined distance of 625,387 km - the equivalent of cycling more than fifteen times around the planet. And in recognising their tremendous effort, INEOS has donated €2,000 to the local charity of choice for each of the 52 teams that completed the company-inspired challenge.

At its manufacturing site in Grangemouth, five teams of employees from INEOS Chemicals, INEOS FPS and Petroineos took on the challenge and their efforts will see £10,000 distributed to the following charities: Strathcarron Hospice, Kersiebank Community Project, Linlithgow Community Development Trust, SAMH and Child Bereavement UK.

Terry Banham, HR Director for INEOS at Grangemouth and member of one of the teams said: “This has been a fantastic effort across all three INEOS businesses based at Grangemouth. The combined effort of our employees to commit to cycling the stage distance every day during the Tour de France competition will see a significant donation to local charities. Not only have we raised this huge amount for charity and good causes, but for some participants the Tour de France Challenge has encouraged them to take up cycling for the first time in many years.”

All proceeds from the challenge will be distributed to charities chosen by each individual team.

Business Studies pupils on course for new academic year

INEOS’ Grangemouth site provides ‘live learning resource’

“The pupils will now be starting the new academic year with real life examples from the commercial-world to support their studies.”

Pupils at Grangemouth High School will be starting the new academic year with an enhanced perspective on the ‘business world’ thanks to a two-week project they undertook in June with their local largest business, INEOS.

The innovative project was specifically designed to support the Business Studies syllabus through collaborative work between the school’s business department and the INEOS commercial team based at Grangemouth.

Peter Grant, Business Director for INEOS Chemicals at Grangemouth said, “This was a ‘first’ for the INEOS Grangemouth site. We have strong education/ business links with the high school based on promoting science, engineering and technological subjects and we were keen to develop a project that is focussed specifically on the commercial aspect of our operations.”

Working with teachers of the Business Studies Department the aim was to bring the school curriculum to life by providing real examples for students and teachers to refer to through the rest of the academic year.

Using the INEOS Grangemouth site as a ‘live case study’, almost 30 students spent the first day of the fortnight exploring various aspects of how a successful business operates. Each team was mentored over the course of the fortnight by INEOS Commercial Graduates and their managers, which culminated in a series of presentations delivered to a specially invited audience.

Stuart Keillor, Supply Chain Manager, INEOS Chemicals Grangemouth commented, “The quality of the presentations was very high and the pupils demonstrated a growing understanding of a number of key concepts from the world of business. The pupils will now be starting the new academic year with real life examples from the commercial-world to support their studies. We are confident that the interaction over the fortnight with our Commercial Graduates will be very useful in providing real applications to the academic concepts they will be covering as part of their business studies course.”

Media contact

David East (INEOS Grangemouth) 01324 476948 or 07768 301709

Plain sailing at INEOS STEM Summer School

Cutting-edge technology that is being employed by INEOS Team UK’s challenge for the prestigious sailing trophy, the America’s Cup, was the focus of this year’s INEOS-sponsored STEM Summer School at Forth Valley College.

Running during the first week of the school holidays at the Falkirk Campus, the summer school for children between the ages of 11 and 14 included a fantastic mix of hands-on practical workshops and project-work, led by a combination of lecturing staff, alumni and industry experts.

Sailing at Port Edgar (1).jpg

Through the week, the youngsters worked towards designing and building their own model boat and then tested their craft against each other’s. And to help them, the class experienced a sailing day at Port Edgar near South Queensferry to better understand the principles of sailing and investigate the performance of different hull shapes.

They also visited the INEOS site in Grangemouth to learn about high performance chemicals and materials production and investigated how the INEOS Team UK’s America’s Cup boat can travel faster than the wind through innovative sail and foil design.

Ian Little, INEOS site business development manager, says. “It’s fantastic to have the 1851 Trust supporting this year’s STEM Summer School. They have a wealth of resources that will deliver an informative, fun and challenging week, increasing the students’ knowledge and understanding of the science behind sailing and helping them gain an appreciation of the work by INEOS TEAM UK to challenge for the America’s Cup in 2021.

“We believe that the Summer School programme will have inspired the young people to keep on studying STEM subjects back at school.”

Laura Leebody, from Grangemouth High School, who took part in the summer school in 2017, has not only continued with STEM subjects, but also took a week off her holiday to volunteer to help with this year’s event.

The week-long programme concluded with the students building their own micro-boats to race competitively along a four metre ‘watery’ race track and writing up their week’s project work to gain a Bronze Crest Award.

Sailing at Port Edgar (3).JPG Fiona Jackson, Curriculum Manager in FVC’s Department of Engineering and Science, said: “What a great way to spend the summer holidays here at Forth Valley College. The young people who attend are usually all very really keen and seem to enjoy themselves and learn at the same time. We look forward to welcoming more young people over the coming weeks and introducing them to the world of science.”

INEOS TEAM UK’s America’s Cup sailor, Neil Hunter from the Isle of Arran was on hand to inspire pupils. Neil, jumped onboard with pupils who were taking part in the Forth Valley College STEM week in partnership with INEOS Grangemouth.

Neil, who was the youngest competitor at the last America’s Cup held in Bermuda in 2017 explained: “It was awesome to be back up in Scotland to see Rebels Sailing first-hand, it is great to see kids within this local area enjoying themselves and this programme, hopefully, they learnt a lot! For a lot of them it was their first day sailing - this is a brilliant opportunity for kids around the UK, I can definitely see some of these kids getting the sailing bug!”

See the video on Twitter here.

Falkirk pupils are engineers in the making

INEOS and their engineers are supporting the award-winning Primary Engineer and Secondary Engineer programmes in Falkirk.

The programme is designed to promote engineering skills and careers to pupils, their parents and teachers and will be delivered in 10 Falkirk schools.

On Thursday 13^th September, Primary and Secondary school teachers teamed up with engineers from INEOS O&P UK at Grangemouth to take part in Primary Engineer training day ahead of delivering in the classrooms.

Primary Engineer is a not-for-profit organisation working with local authorities, teachers, industry and government to promote engineering skills and careers with children as young as three years old, through Primary and into Secondary phase education.

Dr Susan Scurlock, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer, expressed her delight in the partnership. “We are thrilled that INEOS will be investing in our programmes and that their engineers will be supporting the teachers’ delivery of the project. Falkirk is surrounded by engineering – whether it’s INEOS’ plant at Grangemouth, the Falkirk Wheel or the Kelpies. Our work together will ensure young people in the area understand the skills and routes into the many fields of engineering to benefit the Forth Valley region for years to come.”

INEOS O&P UK owns and operates petrochemical plants in Grangemouth, producing key products used in wide range of everyday items that enhance and improve our ways of life. Employing more than 900 highly skilled people it is vital for the long-term future of the industry and for manufacturing that there is a pool of talent, interested in science, technology and engineering. Each year the business recruits Graduates and Modern Apprentices into its engineering training programmes.

John McNally, CEO O&P UK said, “Engineering is at the heart of our industry. It is therefore important that we work in partnership with teachers to enthuse young people to take up Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects at school. The Primary Engineer Programme is a great way to utilise the expertise and harness the enthusiasm of our employees to inspire the next generation of engineers, technologists and scientists.”

Forth Valley College are hosting the teacher training event and the pupil celebration in April, providing opportunities for teachers and pupils to understand more about studying engineering. The project is also supported by DYW Forth Valley and Falkirk Council.

Kenny MacInnes, Head of Engineering at Forth Valley College, explains why the College has chosen to get involved:

“This is an excellent opportunity to support engagement between teachers and industry and help them to enhance STEM learning for children and young people. This type of engagement sits at the heart of the Scottish Government’s STEM strategy and Forth Valley College is delighted to be able to host this event.”

About Primary Engineer

Primary Engineer is a not-for-profit organisation established in 2005 and has developed an engineering curriculum that includes teacher CPD and Master’s-level professional development, inspiring engineering classroom projects, competitions and exhibitions.

Programmes include Early Years Engineer, Primary Engineer, Secondary Engineer, Leaders Award (across England), Scottish Engineering Leaders Award, Institution of Primary Engineers, Institution of Secondary Engineers, Institution of Tertiary Engineers and PGCert Engineering STEM (Master’s-level Course). Primary Engineer is a national programme based in Burnley with offices in Glasgow, Durham, Canterbury and London, and is supported by a range of government, industry partners and trade associations.

For more information contact:

Lise McCaffery Regional Director for Scotland Lise.mccaffery@primaryengineer.com

Victoria Lane – Operations Director on 01282 417333, Victoria.lane@primaryengineer.com

www.primaryengineer.com | www.secondaryengineer.com | www.leadersaward.com

INEOS contact:

David East, Communications Manager: 01324 476948

Employee volunteering

The Grangemouth site has a long tradition of supporting employees’ volunteering commitment. It forms the basis of our Social Investment programme.

Social Investment gives us the opportunity to enhance the positive nature of our business.

There are three basic elements to Grangemouth's Social Investment Strategy:

Community: our focus is firmly on supporting our local communities, to raise and maintain the site's profile and to support the voluntary activities of our employees

Education: encouraging science and engineering in local schools in support of our business needs

Enterprise: leveraging our expertise to promote growth in the local economy and Scotland.

Developing the Young Workforce

An annual plan of activities with Grangemouth High School has been drawn up that will deliver coordinated school student and teachers visits to the site as well as providing opportunities for employees to visit the school to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Duncan McIntosh, Learning and Development Manager, says: “Under the national Developing Young Workforce initiative we have been able to establish a formal framework with Grangemouth High School. The framework helps INEOS employees to share their experience and knowledge in Science, Technology and Engineering with the school. Our presence close to the school makes it a perfect partnership to help prepare local school pupils for the world of work.”

The DYW strategy, which has been rolled out across Scotland, has the aim of helping support young people into employment and complements the work the site has continued to undertake in working with local schools.

In March the site welcomed two groups of students into the works laboratory from the school’s ‘Skills for Work Lab’ class. The students were given demonstrations of some of the analytical techniques used in one of Scotland’s most advanced industrial laboratories. They had the opportunity to contrast these with those used in the school laboratory and to discover some of the activities undertaken by a key employer that shares the same town as they do.