People
health & well-being
Mercuria prioritizes the well-being of our employees and partners. We firmly believe that a safe and healthy work environment is crucial for our team members to succeed and to thrive. Our commitment extends beyond physical safety and also includes mental health and overall well-being.
We rigorously comply with all relevant laws and regulations when conducting its business, and all activities are managed to the highest Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) standards which is ensured by closely following the principles set out below.
Business partners are only selected if we believe they share Mercuria’s unwavering commitment to act responsibly and conduct businesses in a way that minimises HSE risks. Mercuria’s due diligence and assessment processes is also applied to the infrastructure that we use, including transportation and storage facilities.
HSE principles
Mercuria’s HSE principles are expected to be followed by our employees and partners at all times and are fundamental to the entire Group’s business activities. These principles are:
- Mercuria seeks to provide a safe and healthy workplace for all (employees, contractors and the public).
- Mercuria is committed to ensuring ongoing compliance with all applicable rules, laws and regulations.
- Mercuria is committed to conducting business with high standards relating to health, safety and the environment.
- Mercuria commits to measure, record and review the company’s performance in terms of its Health, Safety and Environmental metrics; and use that information to guide its future efforts.
- Mercuria is committed to contributing to the development of the local communities where it operates.
To ensure these principles are closely followed and supported, Mercuria has dedicated HSE resources in place throughout the entire organization; from the Group’s leadership through to the practical “boots-on-the-ground” parts of our business.
Health & safety reporting
As we again report on metrics through our annual CSR report, we think it is useful to add some information here concerning our rational for the range of activities that are encompassed within these metrics. As with any statements Mercuria publicly offer, our intent is to provide consistent information that can readily be understood. While certainly reporting upon injury events involving our direct employees, we also include those individuals doing work on behalf of our organization (i.e., contractors) with similar regard. We highlight that this broad range of persons for whom we would report injury events extends beyond the demographic information for our direct employees alone that is presented elsewhere within our CSR report. We also report upon not just those businesses over which we have operational control, but also extending to entities where we have some oversight for the practical business operations as exhibited by Mercuria having some leadership presence through the entity’s Board membership or similar executive leadership role.
As discussed elsewhere in this report, as part of choosing our business partners and service providers we include within our KYC process inquiry into their having similar HSE standards and commitments to our own. While our reporting metrics include individuals from those partners and service providers that are working for us as contractors, we do not otherwise look to report upon incidents concerning our business partners’ separate operations or events concerning other employees they may have who are not providing services to or acting as a part of the operations under Mercuria’s operational control or oversight.
Emergency response plans
Emergency Response Plans (ERP’s) are in place for all our operating business. These plans are developed individually and reflect each business’ distinct operations, designed to satisfy the specific regulatory obligations of the jurisdictions in which they operate. We are continually expanding our set of ERP’s to achieve a robust, overarching system which enables Mercuria teams to monitor and respond to concerns and challenges in real time, and to address additional risks as they are recognized.
While the specifics of document formats are necessarily bespoke to our different business activities, Business Continuity Plans (BCPs) generally exist as a component of Mercuria and our Assets’ overarching ERPs. ERPs and BCPs both are intended to provide frameworks for the orderly and systematic approaches that can be followed in a crisis situation. ERPs have as their focus issues of safety and the protection of life, the environment and our physical assets. In contrast BCPs have as their focus measures for continuing operations and restoring activities to normal practices. Both will offer advise in responding to immediate events to mitigate injury, damage or loss, followed by organized efforts to re-establish proper operations. The plans also outline key roles with respective responsibilities as well as frameworks to set goals and objectives our organizations may look to achieve in response to a given incident. The pandemic has seen these plans being successfully implemented across our organization, and has also highlighted their value as we continually review and build upon them.
Specialized HSE training
HSE is a core element of the training provided within 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 spill prevention and management, and marine issues. The general safety topics which are included in the HSE training for our physical operations include:
- Safe work permitting (both hot and cold work)
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), eye and face/ hand/foot protection
- Respiratory protection
- Lockout – Tag out (LOTO) for control of hazardous energy
- Noise exposure
- Heat / cold exposure
- Fall protection, walking and safe working surfaces
- Hazard communication / Hazardous and toxic chemicals in the workplace
- Injury and illness reporting and recordkeeping
- Near miss and unsafe condition reporting
- Machine guarding
Within our office environments we are working to similarly provide appropriate training and resource. This includes:
- 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.
- Offering training to employees on providing basic first aid and 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.
- For our offices where we normally have or expect a large number of persons, in addition to basic first aid equipment we have also installed AEDs.
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