Improving People’s Lives: The Perfect Day

President's column

What constitutes a perfect day? It depends. To a surfer, it is a day of warm sunshine and perfect waves. To sports fans, perhaps a great win by their favorite team. We each have our own idea of what makes a perfect day.

Another aspect of a perfect day may not be a conscious thought but is of utmost importance: arriving home safely at the end of the day. Last month, I wrote about how the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ (SPE) mission statement reflects the role of the Society and its members in serving the public benefit. This month, let us discuss how we are going beyond statements to actions to improve people’s lives by not only enabling affordable energy, but also by doing it in the healthiest, safest, and most environmentally responsible way possible.

HSE: An Evolving Approach

When I started my career, the topic of health, safety, and environment (HSE) was often seen as a regulatory obligation to meet government requirements. HSE is now recognized as the “right thing to do” for two very important reasons.

1. It is part of our moral and ethical responsibility to our employees, customers, contractors, the communities in which we work, and to the future of our planet.
2. HSE is good for business. There is no downside to good HSE practices. Conversely, the cost of poor practices can drive companies out of business.

More organizations are striving to eliminate or significantly reduce HSE incident occurrences. This trend in performance improvements over the past decade has plateaued. We need a breakthrough. This will not occur overnight; it will require a journey.

Getting to Zero

SPE has a long commitment to HSE and I strongly encourage you to visit its website at spe.org/hsenow. This free website for HSE professionals is an informative public resource. HSE is a growing discipline within SPE globally. OnePetro (www. onepetro.org) now has 6,000 published HSE papers. As the number of professionals sharing knowledge on HSE increases, SPE offers the ideal place where they can gather, access resources, increase learning, and collaborate to improve industry practices.