Consol chief executive officer J Brett Harvey said the Pittsburgh-based coal and natural gas company planned to publish this report annually.

“Our object is to help all of our stakeholders – customers, employees, shareholders, communities, non-governmental organizations, regulators and others – better understand our corporate responsibility objectives, goals and achievements,” he said.

On the safety front Consol achieved its best performance ever. Its coal division’s performance was 2.5 times better than the underground mining industry average, based on 2011 Mine Safety and Health Administration data.

The natural gas division recorded more than 5 million exposure hours without a lost time incident, continuing its Absolute Zero performance since 1994.

Staff health is another key part of the safety process – as well as being a productivity enhancing tool.

To this end Consol launched a company-wide wellness program to encourage its workers and their families to undertake preventative diagnostic health assessments. More than 99% of Consol’s workers participated.

Consol formalised and standardized its environmental management system to be consistent with the ISO-14001 standards.

The company also completed an inventory of its total greenhouse gas emissions and implemented 100% recycling of its flowback water from its Marcellus shale operations. It also is moving to close-loop drilling processes to further reduce its environmental footprint.

Consol senior vice-president environmental strategy and regulatory affairs Katherine Fredriksen said the company’s short-term priority was to build on the Absolute Zero program and build the zero accident culture into the company and its contractors.

“In the areas of environmental and compliance our priorities are to establish clear targets for our key performance indicators based upon our 2011 performance,” she said.

“We used the Global Reporting Initiative reporting principles in the development of this report and are purposefully investing time and effort to make sure we set ambitious targets suitable for our business and in line with our core values.”

The Global Reporting Initiative is a non-profit organization promoting economic, environmental and social sustainability. It provides companies with a comprehensive sustainability reporting framework.