Sustainable process safety

The definition of sustainability seemingly is becoming broader. As an oil and gas reporter, I traditionally think of sustainability in terms of sustainable development of oil and natural gas as it relates to the environment and the economy.

One consultant recently suggested sustainability includes the downstream industry’s ability to sustain a high standard of process safety performance. He was talking about indicators to measure the safety of plant operations. This differs from personal safety indicators such as illness and injury rates.

During my recent research for the Sept. 8 Oil & Gas Journal special report on refining safety, it became obvious that it’s still easier to obtain personal safety statistics than it is to obtain process safety statistics.

I would welcome any suggestions on where and how to obtain petroleum-related process safety statistics. This also prompts the question of whether process safety statistics might become more publicized in the future.

Meanwhile, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has established 12 essential features of a good process safety culture (Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007). CCPS suggests that companies:

• Establish process safety as a core value.
• Provide strong leadership.
• Establish and enforce high standards of performance.
• Formalize the safety culture approach.
• Maintain a sense of vulnerability.
• Empower individuals to successfully fulfill their safety responsibilities.
• Defer to expertise.
• Ensure open and effective communications.
• Establish an environment open to questions and learning.
• Foster mutual trust.
• Provide timely response to safety issues and concerns.
• Provide continuous monitoring of performance.

An emphasis upon these features allows a company to evaluate existing safety culture and determine how best to improve it, CCPS said.