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. Normaly department focus on Quality and Products, but HSE specify that Health and Safety management must be implied in organsiation, special for the Chemical Inductry.

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

Bhopal Disaster: 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 isocyanate (MIC) gas and other chemicals. Loss can’t be estimated in exact figure, but you may guess that On 8 June 2012, the Centre 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.

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 Organisation 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. Source: Wikipedia

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        Organisation

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

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