EHS Global Standards
Our environment, health, safety and social responsibility (EHS & SR) management system provides an important framework for continuous improvement in enhancing operational excellence, tracking key performance metrics, managing risk and maintaining regulatory compliance. As part of our effort to improve our operational effectiveness and EHS performance, we have been working to develop and implement an enhanced set of EHS standards across the company. The goals of this project are to formalize enterprisewide expectations and accountabilities and support a globally consistent approach to operational excellence. By documenting our expectations in the form of standards, we aim to strengthen assurance across the enterprise.
Following a risk-based approach and our Documents Standard, we prioritized the order of development and implementation of enterprisewide standards into three phases, as shown in the graphic below.
As part of implementation, we require our assets to complete desktop gap assessments in which they compare their current documented practices with the expectations of the enhanced standards and develop actions to close any gaps identified.
In 2018 we continued development and approval of the Phase II and III standards through cross-asset and cross-functional teams, including finalizing and approving the Excavation and Trenching Standard. We also added a standard on food safety to Phase III. All assets included within the scope of the project completed gap assessments for the newly approved standard and created implementation plans to align with the project timeline. We completed implementation of Phase II standards by the end of 2018, with the exception of those assets that received approval for dispensations. We plan to implement all Phase III standards by the end of 2020. Additionally, in 2019 we plan to reassess all Phase I standards as part of our document review process.
An important aspect of the standards development process has been the incorporation of Lean principles. For example, we developed a standardized work process to gain efficiency, incorporate lessons learned and track our progress from the start of development through the implementation of a standard. To add clarity for all those involved and to mitigate inefficiencies, we created support tools and guidance documents and made them easily accessible through our company intranet. To bring accountability, we established metrics and charts to track the completion of gap assessments and discussed progress as part of our routine operating rhythm.