Energy industry leaders mobilise executive task force

The oil and gas industry has taken another step towards its goal of having zero work-related incidents or injuries. Enform and six associations of the upstream oil and gas and pipeline transmission sectors have convened leaders to create the first Executive Task Force on Safety Culture (task force).

The meeting

At a recently held inaugural meeting, the 13 member task force agreed to a shared mandate that would foster a collaborative approach to advancing and strengthening cross-industry safety culture. The task force membership includes presidents, chief executive officers and vice-presidents from key industry associations as well as businesses across industry sub-sectors.

Comments on the safety systems

"A strong safety culture begins at the top. Executives play a critical role in ensuring that a positive safety culture is driven throughout an organisation," says Cameron MacGillivray, President and CEO of Enform, and Chairman of the task force.

"Companies in our industry have been evolving their safety systems and their safety performance for decades. As an industry, we're well positioned to lead the charge on safety culture. As our industry continues to evolve, leadership is required to create a broad, unified strategy on safety culture. This task force will also serve as the forum for communication and alignment between industry, regulators and other stakeholders."

Support

The task force will be supported by a technical committee on safety culture (TCS) established by Enform in the summer of 2015. The TCS has been working with the industry to understand the effectiveness of safety culture tools that assess current safety systems and to provide a recommended approach for improvements.

"As industry representatives we are aligned in our view that strengthening safety culture is a key element to improving the performance of our industry, the safety of workers and of the communities in which the industry operates," adds co-lead of the task force steering committee, Jim Donihee and Chief Operating Officer at the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA).

"We believe this kind of broad leadership will go a long way in helping to change attitudes, behaviours and thoughts about the overall safety and performance of our industry. As leaders in the industry, we have a profound opportunity to advance the conversation about safety culture towards actionable next steps that will improve our performance."

Edited from source by Stephanie Roker

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/equipment-and-safety/21102015/energy-industry-leaders-mobilise-executive-task-force/