The foundations of our culture

We master the control of our major risks

Based upon the three pillars of integrated health and safety culture (technical aspects, management system and human / organisation factors), we implement actions that control the major risks of our operations. Detailed risks analyses are a minimum requirement for everything that we do, and operational risk controls are assured. We continually encourage innovation to improve work conditions and have a positive impact on health and safety for all.

We work with and for each other

Our leaders collaborate regularly and directly with our people, creating an open flow of communication that allows us to identify and deploy technical, organisational, and human improvement actions. Managerial health and safety inspections promote good conduct across the business and ensure that our working environments are maintained in line with our exceptional health and safety standards.

We have a participative, fair approach

In 2014 SUEZ launched “Fair Culture”, an initiative aimed at creating a climate of trust within our teams, encouraging transparency and integrity. We believe that trust is crucial to keeping our people engaged and therefore proactively reporting health and safety risks or breaches. For us, establishing a Fair Culture means that:

  • Individual and collective good practices must be identified, celebrated, and promoted.
  • Spontaneous reports of mistakes and dangerous situations are continuously encouraged to improve risk prevention.
  • We accept our errors but most importantly learn, adapt, and grow from them.
  • We have zero tolerance towards deliberate violations of our rules, which is uniformly applied to all.

We train our people to develop exceptional health and safety behaviour

We have developed customised health and safety training programs. All our managers benefit from an initial two-day structuring training course. The SUEZ Academy offers on-line courses on human and organisational factors, designed in partnership with the ICSI Safety Academy. We have also developed virtual reality modules on the major risks of our operations, which are starting to be deployed across different entities. In a realistic virtual reality environment, our people are confronted with situations that would otherwise be dangerous in total safety. This simulation gives them a better understanding of the required actions and appropriate responses to avoid incidents and accidents.

Safety always

We share our vision for our health and safety culture with all our subcontractors, suppliers, and customers, as well as beyond our own activities. As a member of the ICSI institute for an industrial safety culture, we participate in workgroups and help to develop tools for other companies and public authorities that share our ambition.