If you knew there was a gas leak in your neighborhood and the lives of all the families who live near you were at risk, you would warn people right? When it comes to safety, surely you would want to share with your peers in industry as well. After all, you may be competitors in some ways when it comes to production but when it comes to safety, an incident effects everyone and prevention is in everyone’s best interest.
Some companies are very brave, they put a stake in the ground and share things like operating procedures and best practices through industry associations, conference presentations or other mediums. Many others want to share but the challenge comes in how to do it without giving away a competitive advantage or disclosing sensitive information. Generally, as an industry, not enough of the most critical risk information gets shared and there is a huge appetite – especially among smaller companies – to learn from the experience of others.
A Safer Industry, Backed By Data
Imagine if you could share all the most critical threats for your most hazardous processes, what would that do to help a smaller company with fewer resources to mitigate that risk? Or what if you could share an approach to risk mitigation that prevents a major incident? The answer is there are many benefits to sharing and learning from others that can make the whole industry safer.
“Gaining knowledge is the first step to wisdom. Sharing it is the first step to humanity.”
– Unknown
Risk Alive holds the world’s largest hazardous risk library sourced from industry leaders across the globe:Â
Insurance premiums are set by industry, among other factors. If you make your industry safer that goes right to your bottom line and saves you money. When incidents occur it goes to the top of everyone’s news feed and conversations begin about the risks of the process, which in turn result in negative press. Additionally, for all your staff, that creates difficult conversations at the dinner table with their families and friends. In this case, sharing can even save lives, there’s no question about it. Keeping industry safe is the right thing to do.
So What Questions Could You Ask About Sharing Risk Information?
- What information can you share?
- Who will benefit from it the most?
- How can you share it safely, protecting your company?
Risk Management is Serious Business
The 2009 incident at Caribbean Petroleum in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, resulted in massive damage to the facilities and surrounding buildings of the community. Thankfully there were no major injuries or fatalities reported but it was a very similar incident to what happened in the Buncefield disaster of 2005, at the Hertfordshire oil storage terminal in Hertfordshire UK (also no fatalities).
Did the team at Caribbean Petroleum know about the Buncefield disaster and the learnings from that incident? What learnings could they have drawn from that incident which could have been implemented in their company to avoid an unsafe day? The Caribbean Petroleum incident resulted in changes to API. Read more about this incident here.
What information do you use to shape your safety processes?
What information do you need to help continuously improve your team’s risk management?
Let us know! Drop a comment below or connect with us to get started using Risk Alive® Analytics to help you and your team learn more from the experiences of others to help us all work safer together.Â
Sources:
https://www.csb.gov/caribbean-petroleum-refining-tank-explosion-and-fire/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-34919922
