The Growing Importance of HSSE-SR in Our Industry
Authors: Moreau Roland 
Published: February 2015

Guest editorial

In September 2012, SPE (in partnership with the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association) held its most successful international Health, Safety, Security, Environment, and Social Responsibility (HSSE-SR) conference to date in Perth, Australia, with 1,700 delegates from 44 countries. It included 375 accepted abstracts, which translated to 48 technical sessions (192 papers presented), 12 panels, 3 special sessions, 3 plenaries, and 89 ePosters. We also had an impressive 55 exhibitors and 16 sponsoring organizations. In addition to the success of these biannual international events (11 held to date), SPE also hosts five well-attended regional HSSE-SR conferences, plus a number of topic-specific workshops. So, what is all the fuss about?

The easy answer to that question is that HSSE-SR is becoming a more prominent factor in our industry’s day-to-day life. As regulator and external stakeholder expectations in the area of HSSE-SR continue to grow, operators, service companies, and others working to address the world’s ever-increasing energy demands are faced with the challenge of safely exploring, developing, and producing oil and gas resources in a manner that is compatible with the balanced environmental and economic needs of the communities in which they operate. For example, in the past, many environmental expectations stemmed from regulatory requirements, whereas the opposite has become true more recently where global environmental and stakeholder expectations are influencing the regulatory framework.

As these HSSE-SR challenges continue to emerge, the question we must ask ourselves is, are we as an industry and as integrated organizations prepared to meet these challenges? How do we prepare for the foreseeable future and what do we need to do to prepare for the unknown challenges that lie ahead?

Facing Expectations

Recent events around the globe have reminded us of the need for our industry to effectively address the broad HSSE-SR expectations as part of our obligation in earning our license to operate. Failure to do so will not only tarnish our image but also limit future access. As an industry, we need to focus on our license to operate, its scope and resulting expectations, and how to earn and protect that trust. All aspects of this industry have a vested interest in getting it right since what happens to one company essentially impacts everyone. 

Unlike other technical disciplines within SPE, such as reservoir, subsurface, drilling, and facilities, HSSE-SR is truly cross-functional in nature and affects all aspects of our business to varying extents. Personnel safety has long been a focus area, and the associated processes, practices, and lessons learned are relatively easy to transfer from region to region globally. The same cannot be said necessarily for the rest of HSSE-SR (i.e., health, environment, social responsibility) where many of the drivers and mitigations tend to be more local or regional. While not directly represented in the HSSE-SR acronym, we should also not underestimate the key role that quality plays, especially when dealing with process safety and risk management. Therein lies part of our challenge.