Health & well-being

Mercuria holds its Health, Safety, Security, and Environmental (HSSE) principles as being fundamental to the Group’s business activities. These principles are expected of all our employees and partners, and include:

• Providing a safe and healthy workplace for employees, contractors, and the public.
• Ensuring strict compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and standards.
• Maintaining our high standards for health, safety, and environmental responsibility throughout our operations and business activities.
• Supporting the development and well-being of the local communities in which we operate.
• Collecting and utilizing performance metrics to drive our practices’ continuous improvement.
• Regularly measuring, recording, and reviewing HSSE performance to guide ongoing initiatives.
• Pursuing continuous improvement and sustainability through applications of best practices, strategic updates, facility enhancements, and other measures while also mitigating, reducing, or eliminating adverse impacts.

We communicate these principles internally to all employees, externally to contractors during onboarding and contracting processes, as well as through management teams overseeing operations within our assets and investments.

Mercuria has dedicated HSSE teams embedded at every level of the organization—from the Group’s leadership to “boots-on-the-ground” personnel at operating businesses and assets—ensuring consistent adherence to and support for these principles.

While all ERPs and BCPs are based on Mercuria’s core values and principles, each plan is tailored to reflect the unique operational characteristics of individual businesses and to comply with regulatory requirements specific to the jurisdictions where they operate. Mercuria continuously reviews and refines these plans to ensure their robustness, focusing on effective communication and clearly defined roles and responsibilities for real-time emergency response.  This process also includes addressing emerging risks as they are recognized.

As part of routine drills and exercises—as well as after any actual emergency response—Mercuria’s teams conduct thorough reviews and critiques of the plans.  These assessments seek to identify opportunities for improvement and strengthen both pre-planning efforts and incident management capabilities.

Mercuria assures its employees and contractors that concerns raised in good faith are fully supported by company leadership.  When Stop-Work Authority is exercised, Mercuria leaders consult with the individual who identified the issue to understand their perspective and to provide transparency regarding the corrective actions being implemented.  As a core principle, Mercuria prioritizes safety and compliance above any commercial objectives, ensuring that work is conducted in a responsible and secure manner.

We also encourage all employees and contractors to report any near-miss events or situations where unsafe conditions or unaddressed hazards are observed.  By identifying and addressing these potential risks early, Mercuria actively works to manage operational risks and prevent future incidents.

To foster open and unfettered communication, Mercuria reminds employees annually of the multiple channels available to report their concerns.  While employees are encouraged to report issues directly to their supervisors, they also have options to raise concerns outside the organizational hierarchy and to do so confidentially if necessary.  Mercuria supports its Stop-Work Authority and Whistleblowing Policy by providing access to various resources, including the Human Resources department, the Corporate Responsibility and Compliance group, and the organization’s corporate Compliance hotline.  These avenues ensure that all employees and contractors have the ability to voice concerns securely, including the option to report anonymously.

HSSE is a core element of the training provided across all our Assets.  While the training topics are broadly the same across our businesses, special consideration is given to reflect the hazards which are unique to the work activities within each operation, such as where flammable materials are stored or where marine operational issues are involved.  The general safety topics which are included in the HSE training for our physical operations include:

• Basic safety and Emergency response plans, site security
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) selection and use
• Respiratory protection
• Lockout – Tag out (LOTO) for control of hazardous energy
• Noise exposure
• Environmental exposure to heat / cold
• Fall protection, walking and safe working surfaces
• Working around excavations, confined space, or other restricted areas
• Hazard communication / Hazardous and toxic chemicals in the workplace
• Accident, injury and illness reporting and recordkeeping
• Near miss and unsafe condition reporting
• Machine guarding, grounding and bonding
• Requirements for safe work planning and permitting (both hot and cold work)
• Job hazard analysis

Within our office environments we are working to similarly provide appropriate training and resources.  This includes:

• Offering training and maintaining equipment available to assist employees in providing basic first aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) for the general management for bleeding, problems with breathing/choking, and other medical emergencies where aid can be given prior to emergency professionals arriving.
• Providing training for issues of workplace behaviour, security and threat management as appropriate with consideration of inappropriate behaviour or harassment, as well as crisis events such as extreme weather, fires, flooding, hostile persons, or other threats of magnitude.

For all our employees and contractors, we require that individuals be properly informed and have received adequate training for their work duties before being permitted to conduct work themselves.  This training is provided initially upon hiring, subsequently at periodic intervals as either regular refresher training or where otherwise needed, and upon changes in job roles – prior to a person assuming those new responsibilities.