Vivo Energy demonstrates the need for continuous safety improvement

Annual Safety Day events take place across the Vivo Energy Group

Vivo Energy, the pan-African retailer and marketer of Shell and Engen-branded fuels and lubricants, has held its annual Safety Day across the whole company, reinforcing the importance of Health, Safety, Security, Environment & Quality (HSSEQ) at Vivo Energy.

Safety Day is an opportunity for all employees and contractors at Vivo Energy to refocus on the importance of HSSEQ. The theme of this year’s event: “Safety: Action Matters”, invited employees and teams to look back at why safety is important to them and explain how they have changed behaviours, systems and processes to improve HSSE in their workplace.

In July, Christian Chammas, the Group CEO, invited all employees to submit examples of safety improvement initiatives.  Nearly 400 entries were submitted, demonstrating how much Vivo Energy employees care about safety.  The leadership teams from each of Vivo Energy’s markets then selected the best example of safety improvement from their own country, and these have been showcased and shared across to Group to demonstrate how Action Matters in safety, encouraging colleagues to adopt these HSSEQ improvement initiatives in their own markets.

Commenting on Safety Day, Grant Bairstow, Head of HSSEQ for the Vivo Energy Group said: “Safety is an integral and essential part of everything we do at Vivo Energy and remains an absolute priority across the business for our staff and contractors.  Given many employees have been working from home as a result of COVID-19, and have spent less time in the workplace, it is particularly important for Safety Day 2020 to engage employees on HSSEQ matters.”

In addition to employees sharing their safety improvement initiatives, each market has developed a programme of activities to remind their employees to focus on HSSEQ, culminating in physical and virtual events this week.

The Managing Director of Vivo Energy Ghana, Mr. Ben Hassan Ouattara added: “Our ultimate ambition as a Company, is to achieve a world-class safety culture, where HSSE is fully integrated into the ways of working for all staff and contractors at Vivo Energy.  Whilst safety is embedded across the company our annual Safety Day provides a moment for all our teams to stop; reflect on how action matters; and ensure we are doing everything we can to achieve our aim of ‘Goal Zero’ – no harm to people and minimising our impact on the environment.”  As at End September 2020, we have achieved 4238 Goal Zero days and it is our wish to end the year without any major recordable Incident.

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Vivo Energy’s first priority has, and always will be, the health and safety of our people, our customers, and the communities where we operate – a priority made more challenging by the impact of COVID-19 across the world this year.  Commenting on Vivo Energy’s HSSEQ response to COVID-19, Bairstow concluded: “At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we acted quickly and decisively, implementing a range of preventive and protective health and safety measures across Vivo Energy. As a supplier of essential products in our markets, we maintained supply at both our retail sites and to commercial customers.  We continue to ensure that the appropriate personal protective equipment is available and that stringent additional screening, cleaning procedures and facilities continue at our sites and depots to limit the risk of infection.”

Vivo Energy continues to work hard to achieve its HSSEQ goals in order to make continued progress in becoming Africa’s most respected energy business.