Role of Process Safety in Sustainability

Sustainability is a key element of being a responsible corporate citizen and maintaining the social right to operate. As an an element of business strategy, sustainability can drive long-term corporate growth and profitability by mandating the inclusion of environmental and social issues into business economics. But how does that impact existing operating strategies, especially regulatory requirements such as process safety management (PSM)? This presentation will discuss what it takes to be the sustainably responsible operator and how companies can leverage their existing process safety framework to help achieve that goal.

An operational management system (OMS) may not be a new concept to operators as it defines the overarching program on how operators will design, operate, and maintain their facilities. However, an existing OMS may be outdated as they typically only cover the traditional aspects of health, safety, environmental risks. A more robust OMS should also include a focus on sustainability.

An element of OMS is risk assessment, which outlines how a company should identify, assess, and treat risks related to operations. A process hazard analysis (PHA) evaluates such causes, consequences and associated risk, including impacts to personnel. The different consequence categories are based on definitions in company standards (i.e., risk matrix) which, like an OMS, may be outdated to only evaluate personnel impacts. To be the sustainably responsible operator, a company should refocus and expand their PHAs to identify and mitigate environmental, business, and social issues. Examples include:

-Environmental

--Environmental release scenarios that lead to increased flaring, leaks to cooling water, etc.

--Hazard reviews for new environmentally friendly technology; replace higher emission process; use of less hazardous materials, etc.

-Business

--Scenarios that could damage assets and / or affect business continuity, including operational efficiency and downtime (lost profit opportunities).

-Social

--Scenarios that could affect license to operate.

To be a sustainable operator, changes must be made to operational systems and must include elements to support that system and to the overall company mindset to ensure all aspects of sustainability goals are met. This will help to make foundational contributions towards managing their People, Profit and Planet risks.