Good Safety is Good Business – How to Create a World-Class Safety Culture

This article was originally posted in Industrial Hygiene News.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2010 studies on occupational injuries and fatalities, there were over 3 million recorded cases of nonfatal workplace injuries and more than 4,500 fatalities in 2010 in private industry alone. Safety incidents cost businesses a vast sum in not just workers’ compensation but also by causing severe hits to productivity via lost work days, human resources time spent on incident investigation, decreased leadership efficacy and other operational and organizational costs. DuPont is proud to be known for its workplace safety and over the years has experienced first-hand how creating a safety culture leads to a more sustainable business. Following is an example of how DuPont helped one energy company undertake a safety culture initiative and the lasting benefits the company derived as a result.

Edison Mission Group (EMG) manages the competitive power generation business and other subsidiaries of Edison International, a generator and distributor of electric power and an investor in infrastructure and energy assets, including renewable energy. In 2006, an EMG company, Midwest Generation (MWG), an independent power producer that sells electricity in competitive wholesale markets, was in the midst of an increase in the severity of injuries, including fatalities, at its coal-fired plants. MWG senior leadership turned to DuPont for help in improving their safety record with the goal of achieving world-class safety performance. To accomplish this, DuPont began by evaluating Midwest Generation’s safety management against world-class systems in order to identify opportunities for improvement. From there, DuPont made recommendations on how MWG could develop a more effective safety system.

Read the full article here to learn how MWG implemented a superior safety system and the results they experienced because of it.