Health, Safety and Environment

We actively manage the health, safety, and environment (HSE) aspects of all our activities. Our performance in these areas is integral to our Sustainability 2030 plan and to delivering our purpose of advancing a sustainable energy future for all. We see these as vital to our ‘license to operate’ and to making us attractive as an employer as well as a business with which others – customers, suppliers, and partners – wish to work.

HSE factors always come first in the decisions we make. We seek to minimize the risk of harm and are determined to eradicate fatalities, life-changing injuries, and major environmental incidents. Our Life Saving Rules are our flagship safety program to protecting all those who work with us on the tasks which have the highest potential risk. 

Lifelong learning is a key element of our approach to HSE. In addition to providing the necessary training for each type of role within the company, we provide site-specific safety inductions and relevant HSE-focused upskilling for employees and contract staff.

We work with our employees, customers, partners, and suppliers to drive continual improvement, and to ensure we develop the culture, knowledge, skills, policies, systems, and processes we need. In 2023 we redefined and reinvigorated our HSE Week which a series of global and local events and activities build their knowledge and capabilities as we strive towards world-class performance.

This collaborative approach acknowledges that we all have responsibility for protecting ourselves, others, and the environment. We adopt an operational philosophy based on the principles of human and organizational performance which helps us understand how successes and failures occur. This open reporting environment enables us to learn directly from our people and find improvements.

Likewise, thousands of learning walks, internally known as safety observation tours, are conducted annually and provide a proactive means for tackling risks before they become incidents. Learning also comes from a robust program of auditing and through incident investigations. These all contribute to our monitoring and reporting across the business.

Our products and services help our customers deliver their environmental targets. Likewise, we are focused on minimizing our environmental footprint and protecting biodiversity – our 11 Green Steps program is our next step supporting our factories take action to improve the sustainability of our operations.

We recognize that a holistic approach to employee health and well-being is vital to having a thriving, engaged, and productive workforce, as well as being a significant factor in attracting and retaining employees. Our efforts to improve health and well-being are informed by feedback from colleagues, in addition to applying World Health Organization principles and international conventions and standards such as those governed by the International Labor Organization.

The foundations for effective HSE performance are seen in how we remove or manage potential risks.

Our HSE documentation includes the standards we expect all activities to achieve or exceed – defining the minimum requirements within the company and prescribing full compliance with all laws and regulations wherever we are working.

Through our ‘Stop! Take 5’ and Time Out For Safety (TOFS) approaches, we actively encourage everyone working for us to raise concerns where they believe appropriate controls are not in place for safe working.

Our approach to well-being embraces physical, mental, and occupational health

Physical health:
we run wellness programs to motivate behavior change, drive engagement, and promote better health practices.

Mental health:
we are integrating proactive wellbeing management into our strategy.

Occupational health:
we ensure safe workplaces and working conditions by complying with the applicable occupational health and industrial hygiene standards.