Health Safety & Environment Management System

What is HSE-MS?

HSE-MS (Health Safety & Environment Management System) is set of Guideline developed for considering environmental protection, Occupational Health and Safety at work as important as providing quality products. Normally department focus on Quality and Products, but HSE specifies that Health and Safety management must be implied in organization, special for the Chemical Industry.

Background of HSE: HSE MS came into the picture after few serious incidences were occurred in chemical industry like Bhopal disaster (India) (1984) and Seveso disaster (Italy) (1976) due to failure of the Management System.

Bhopal Disaster (India) 1984: Bhopal Gas Tragedy was world's worst industrial disaster, a gas leak incident, which happen in heart of the India and killed approximately 3,787 to 19,000+ people which happen on 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. This loss can neither be compensated in Financial nor in Emotional manner. Over 500,000 people were exposed to Methyl isocyanine (MIC) gas and other chemicals. Loss can’t be estimated in exact figure, but you may guess that on 8 June 2012, the Center for incineration of toxic Bhopal waste agreed to pay INR250 million (US$4.2 million) to dispose of UCIL chemical plants waste. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.

Seveso Disaster (Italy) 1976: The pressure rise caused by the runaway reaction destroyed the rupture disk, and the contents were discharged into the atmosphere, forming a mushroom-like cloud. The mushroom cloud diffused to the south by the north wind that was blowing at the time, and it contaminated a vast area of about 1800 hectares. It is thought that 30 to 40kg of 2,3,7,8-Tetra Chlorodebenzopara Dioxin (TCDD), a deadly poison, was contained in this mushroom cloud. The toxicity of TC DD is about 100000 times that of sodium cyanide. For several days, no countermeasures were taken towards the leaked material, which fell down to the ground as a white crystal and was left as it was. As a result, in addition to the contamination of the 1800 hectares of land, victims of diseases such as cancer, chronic dermatitis, neuropathy, and deformed babies were estimated to be over 220,000, and over 80,000 domestic animals were killed. The abortion rate of pregnant women in the Seveso district from April to June in the following year reached 34%. The contaminated soil was buried underground in two large newly dug holes. The volume of one of them was 150,000 m3 and  that of the other was a half.

The holes were then enclosed by polyethylene sheet and cove red with non-contaminated soil. Finally, the hole was covered with a 1 m thick layer of concrete, thus it was sealed completely. The accident was caused by just a small violation of operation instruction. The existence of a runaway reaction at a lower temperature than the expected temperature was a major cause of the accident. It was not known at that time that a runaway reaction could accurate such a low temperature. There had been over 14 explosion accidents related to TCDD caused by TCP (2,4,5-trichlorophenol) manufacturing plants of the same product, and each accident caused enormous damage to human health. It was already known at the time that usually slight amount s of TCDD were formed in the reaction. Source: Wikipedia

Why EHS Management System?

 Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Management System could have avoided the happening which happens due to lack of skill or system in Organization or departments. EHS Management has two general objectives: prevention of incidents or accidents that might result from abnormal operating conditions on the one hand and reduction of adverse effects that result from normal operating conditions on the other hand.

The first formal EHS management approach was introduced in 1985 by the chemical industry as a reaction to several catastrophic accidents; this worldwide voluntary initiative called “Responsible Care” is in place in about 50 countries and centrally coordinated by the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA). It involves eight fundamental features that ensure plant and product safety, occupational health and environmental protection but also try to demonstrate by image-building campaigns that the chemical industry acts in a responsible manner. Still, this initiative is restricted to the chemical industry. 

Since 1990s, International Standards were issued various standards like ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 for environmental management and for occupational health and safety management and EMAS, meanwhile in 1998 EHS Guideline were issued by International Finance Cooperation.

EHS Guidelines of the International Finance Corporation: The EHS Guidelines are Technical Reference Documents with general and industry specific instances of Good International Industry Practice (GIIP). Mainly it covers following points. All requirements and guideline are classified in four categories.

First Parameter: Environmental

·         Air Emissions and Ambient Air Quality

·         Energy Conservation

·         Wastewater and Ambient Water Quality

·         Water Conservation

·         Hazardous Materials Management

·         Waste Management

·         Noise

·         Contaminated Land and Remediation

·         Releases to water

·         Releases to land

·         Use of raw materials and natural resources

·         Energy emitted, heat/radiation/vibration

·         Waste and by-products

Second Parameter: Occupational Health and Safety

·         General Facility Design and Operation

·         Communication and Training

·         Physical Hazards

·         Chemical Hazards

·         Biological Hazards

·         Radiological Hazards

·         Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

·         Special Hazard Environments

·         Monitoring

Third Parameter: Community Health and Safety

·         Water Quality and Availability

·         Structural Safety of Project Infrastructure

·         Life and Fire Safety (L&FS)

·         Traffic Safety

·         Transport of Hazardous Materials

·         Disease Prevention

·         Emergency Preparedness and Response

Fourth Parameter: Construction and Decommissioning

·         Environment

·         Occupational Health and Safety

·         Community Health and Safety

Key Elements The following 15 elements give guidance, as well as providing minimum standards in formulating an HSE Management System appropriate to each Business Unit. Surely situations may warrant much more and only by exception, will any require less.

1.      Leadership

2.     Objective setting

3.     Organization

4.     Legislative compliance

5.     Risk management

6.     Health and community

7.     Human factors

8.     Training and competence

9.     Information, documents and standards

10.  Integrity management

11.  Third parties and suppliers

12.  Emergency preparedness and response

13.  Environmental management

14.  Incident reporting and investigation

15.  Change management