Social 

Social

Our core ESG priorities align with our strategy and are fully integrated into our risk management program.

Our Social Priorities include:

  • Safety
  • Talent management
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion
  • System reliability and grid resiliency
  • Customer affordability
  • Community investment
  • Indigenous relations

 

See our latest Sustainability Report to learn more about our approach on:

  • Safety
  • Our Team
  • Customer Experience
  • Community Investment
  • Indigenous Relationships

Safety Culture

Three people wearing safety equipment

We are relentlessly focused on achieving an Emera where no one gets hurt. 

We’re committed to fostering a safety culture where our team members are personally responsible for their own safety and the safety of others. 

Our employees are empowered to speak up and take action when they see potentially unsafe conditions or behaviours. We continuously reinforce our preventative approach to safety and strongly encourage proactive safety reporting of issues before they can result in injury or loss. 

 

Safety Governance

At the Emera corporate level, safety oversight is maintained by Health, Safety and Environment Committee of the Emera Board and by our executive leadership team.  

Emera’s Vice President, Safety and Environment has executive leadership over our business-wide safety program, supported by a dedicated corporate safety team.  

Within each of Emera’s operating companies, senior leaders are responsible for the overall safe operation of their facilities and for ensuring their businesses have an effective Safety Management System (SMS). Our team members and contractors operate under safety and health policies and programs that are implemented at the local level. 

Each of our operating companies also has a team to manage safety performance and risk, as well as a dedicated senior leader who reports into the local executive group and works closely with the corporate safety team. Corporate and operating company annual scorecards contain targets relevant to our safety performance to ensure we deliver on our strategic goals. 

All Emera companies require: 

  • safety on-boarding for new employees and safety orientation training for contract employees before commencing work at Emera’s facilities;
  • safety teams dedicated to managing safety performance and operational risk, with a director or senior leader who reports into the local executive team; and,
  • joint worker-management health and safety committees. Also, where there are formal agreements in place with trade unions, these agreements include safety and health requirements. 

Read our Occupational Safety and Health and Policy >

Additional Information

Safety Management System   
Our well-developed Safety Management System (SMS) is informed by the International Standards Organization (ISO) 45001 standard. It provides a comprehensive platform for the governance of safety policies and programs, including the consistent application of corporate standards, compliance requirements, and continual improvement across the company. We’ve implemented our SMS and robust risk management processes, with particular focus on continually improving contractor safety management, Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIF) prevention and safety leadership. 
Safety Leadership
A strong, visible commitment by leadership is critical to our successful SMS and our strong safety culture. We’re focused on ensuring senior management presence in the field and engagement within operations through participation in various safety initiatives that provide opportunities for leaders to reinforce safety as our first priority. 
Contractor Safety
Contractors support us in many key areas and are valued partners on teams across Emera. As with all of our team members, their safety is critically important to us. Our contractor safety management procedures include a robust process for assessing potential service providers. Before they are hired, we complete a comprehensive review of their safety programs, leadership and performance. This rigour extends to contractor training requirements and close monitoring of work sites from the start of a project until it is safely completed. 
Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIF) Program 
We’re guided by our Emera-wide SIF Prevention Program as we work to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities across the business. The program includes extensive training for frontline employees, including on energy-based hazard recognition. High-risk reviews and field-level compliance checks are helping to reduce SIFs in our business by ensuring critical operational controls are in place and functioning effectively before work begins. 
Public Safety
Our focus on safety starts with our team and extends to our customers and the communities where we live and work. 

This includes working to reduce public safety risk at and near our operations and work sites. This can include security and safety barriers around our facilities, traffic management at and near active job sites, visible signage along pipeline and transmission routes, and public notification around vegetation management activities including trimming and spraying. When required, we also provide notification to mariners for any subsea work.