HSEQ management

No accidents, no incidents, no damages

Quality and safety is central to everything we do in Thorco and all processes we carry out are characterized by the same objectives:

- Safety first
- No accidents or incidents
- No damage

Our safety and quality policies are clearly defined and integrated in all our operations. We also enforce a ’no blame/just culture’ policy to encourage the reporting of all incidents. The overall objective is to become even better by knowledge sharing and learning from incidents.

Thorco has become a major player in the industry and supports initiatives, standards and techniques to improve the level of safety and awareness. Our way of working have set standards for best practice and all IMO and OCIMF standards are followed.

Health and Safety

Health and safety is central to our work in Thorco. Our safety management systems follow industrial standards, as the ISM (Integrated Safety Management System) and the OCIMF Code (Oil Company Industrial Maritime Forum) set out by the International Maritime Organization and the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. These systems describe and define all aspects of our safety policy on board our vessels and in our offices worldwide.

To strengthen cooperation on health and safety, our Safety Committee is formed by employee and management representatives from both vessels and offices. The Safety Committee’s focus areas are based on the learnings extracted from i.e. our reporting system and trends in the market. We encourage all employees to report incidents, sharing knowledge and experiences, thus strengthening the safety culture in our company. All incidents are handled in relation to our “no blame/just culture,” the reporting system used to state corrective and preventative actions to prevent reoccurrence of the incident.

When operating one of our vessels, staff, crew and contractors need to be properly introduced and trained with focus on our safety standards and personal protection equipment (PPE). Rules regarding visits to our sites are described in our company policies and standards.
Thorco maintains a strict policy on drugs and alcohol. Any use of drugs or alcohol on board our vessels and at our premises is strictly forbidden. Random checks are regularly carried out to ensure adherence to this policy.

Creating a safety culture

In Thorco, we are dedicated to create a “safety culture” to align procedures and behaviours, both at sea and in the office. Creating a safety culture requires aligning the company’s knowledge and building a vocabulary of safety that everyone understands immediately. It has to become, quite simply, “the way we do things.”

Thanks to their own experience and our employee selection process, and strengthened by the safety culture program, our people have developed a proactive attitude to safety throughout the company, starting with top management and permeating down through the entire organization.

First stage in our implementation plan focuses on how to share a common definition of what an accident actually is. Secondly, involvement from all in the the organization is evident to find our own words for talking about safety, such as “safety first,” which can help us place safety at the heart of our company.

Supervision, intervention and awareness have been focal points during the HSEQ implementation, helping employees on to how to read people in situations that might give rise to a safety issue.

Everyone feels that they know safety procedures, however, the safety culture program has helped them to adopt a new safety mind-set on a higher level. We were also careful to achieve a culture free of blame so that nobody is afraid of reporting something, if it looks as though it could cause an incident.

Of course, our safety program never ends. The training and processes have helped install routines and a mind-set – a platform, and new surveys will help to identify focus areas for the next steps.

Supporting setting Standards

Thorco supports the rule making processes under IMO and has adopted the OCIMF standards in relation to the OVID database, with the aim to raise safety standards for maritime operations. The Code of Practice is based on the International Safety Management’s (ISM) own code, but fine-tuned to cater for special requirements.

International Safety Management Code (ISM)
Thorco’s mission adopting OCIMF  is to “promote the safe, cost-effective and environmentally operation in relation to bulk carrying in response to a wide range of challenges.”

Our efforts in the future will focus on:
- promoting a safe industry
- promoting a learning industry
- promoting a well run industry

Quality

We work to industry standards, ensuring a high standard of quality throughout our work both on land and at sea. Our quality management system describes the business processes from the initial customer contact through planning, execution and finally closing the project. Our quality objectives and programs are monitored, striving to continuously improve our business.

As part of our quality management system, we furthermore evaluate and approve our suppliers and cooperate with them to make it a successful collaboration for both parties. Our evaluation is based on our Code of Conduct.

Environmental

The environmental aspects of and impacts from our activities are identified and monitored to determine the significance of all operations, projects, goods, equipment and services to ensure they are minimized and adequately managed. Our overall Company Environmental Policy takes its point of departure in the THORNICO Company Karma Policies, based on the UN Global Compact and UN Guiding Principles of Human Rights.