We describe it as a three-legged stool.
he first leg is the one we’re born with: a deep, personal ownership for our safety and the safety of those around us. We’re born with this responsibility and we can’t abdicate it.
We’ve also found that even though it’s critical, personal responsibly isn’t enough. Further, a primary focus on personal responsibility may unnecessarily create additional risks, such as highly skilled workers learning to navigate hazards instead of controlling them. Efforts around serious injury and fatality prevention have started to reveal the criticality of understanding and controlling risk. Our clients work in complex environments where risks may be difficult to identify or understand.
So our second leg focuses on boosting HOP–human and operational performance–while driving down operational risk, or the risk workers face on the production floor or the construction site.
Often, our EHS-related change efforts will involve every worker at a plant either through a technical EHS team or through risk assessment. This is a full scale intervention.
The third leg focuses on long-term sustainability by integrating EHS into the business and other management systems, such as quality.
Accomplishing this takes tremendous leadership development, which is a critical byproduct of the process.
Sustained over a longer period of time, the organizational culture begins to change, allowing values and principles to manifest through people’s work.
