Author:charleen-clarke
HSE Excellence Europe: Innovate, Collaborate, Elevate! 25th June 2024 The 17th annual HSE Excellence Europe conference recently took place in Amsterdam. CHARLEEN CLARKE reports that delegates were treated to insightful presentations and returned to their workplaces having gained an invaluable understanding of global best practice when it comes to occupational health and safety. Filip Coumans, managing director, EMEA, at the Krause Bell Group, chaired the conference, and he noted that it was “by far the biggest gathering” at HSE Excellence […]
We’re backing the All Blacks! 9th October 2023 Relax, dear readers. We’re not talking about rugby. Instead, we’re referring to an amazing competition in New Zealand, which aims to make the transport industry better, cleaner, and more efficient. We’re supporting this initiative and calling for local entries from truck drivers – who could win bundles of cash! The competition is called Trucking Toward a Better Future, and it is organised by New Zealand Trucking Media and Resilienz, a company specialising in […]
EVs are here – but will they really save our planet? 20th Aug 2021 All over the world, car makers are ditching diesel and petrol-engined cars in favour of electric vehicles. But can these vehicles really save the planet? CHARLEEN CLARKE reports. While electric vehicle (EV) adoption in South Africa is still in the starting blocks, they’re all the rage elsewhere. According to Pew Research Center – a nonpartisan fact tank based in the United States (US) that informs the […]
2020: Many lessons learnt 10th Dec 2020 As we come to the end of the most traumatic year – ever – for most of us, I find myself reflecting on the many lessons that I learnt in 2020. This has been a brutal year. As I write this article, 1 565 407 people have died as a direct result of Covid-19. There have been many other related deaths though. Just this morning I read a heartbreaking story. Kimberley Eccles, a […]
BREAKING NEWS: Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is approved! 2nd Dec 2020 The United Kingdom (UK) has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine – and it could start a mass vaccination programme as early as next week! The approval – announced today (December 2) – has led to hope worldwide that this signals the first step in getting Covid-19 under control and returning to a “normal” life. The vaccine was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates medicines, […]
Take a bow, mining industry! 17th Aug 2020 The mining industry in South Africa should take a bow. Between 1993 and 2019, the industry experienced a 92% overall decline in the number of fatalities! And, in 2019, South Africa’s mining industry recorded the lowest number of fatalities since record-keeping began more than a century ago! These remarkable figures have emerged in a Health and Safety in Mining position paper published by Minerals Council South Africa in July 2020. They’re only […]
In our last issue, I wrote about the good news associated with Covid-19 (yes, I am an optimist). Now, I bring you more good news – and it won’t come as a surprise. For obvious reasons, the market for personal protective equipment is exploding! Amedical technology-focused market intelligence and consulting company called Life Science Intelligence (LSI) has just released a report called “Covid-19 Impact on Global Market for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Gowns, Masks, Respirators”, which contains some fascinating – […]
Covid-19 has been utterly horrific for humankind and the economy (both here in South Africa and globally too). But it’s not ALL bad … I’ve just read an article about old people who are dying alone in Spain. Their bodies are being discovered by the military. In some cases, they have been abandoned by their caregivers. In others, they lived alone. I cried as I read that story – because I could visualise them battling to breathe and then not […]
I recently attended the 14th annual HSE Excellence Europe in Amsterdam and it reminded me – yet again – of the vital importance of proper health and safety procedures. After all, if SHEQ professionals fail at their jobs, people die … “Ten people will die at work today in Europe. Ten people died yesterday. Ten more will die tomorrow.” This sobering opening statement by Davide Scotti, head of HSE culture, communication and training at Saipem, drove home the need for […]
Electric vehicles may be good news for the environment, but they can be bad news for the people who work on them. In fact, as CHARLEEN CLARKE explains, they can be deadly. The headlines in British newspaper The Independent on January 16, 2016, were scary: “Electric cars: mechanics with no specialist training risk death when tinkering with the vehicles” the newspaper proclaimed. Now we all know the British press; they just love sensationalism. However, that headline amounted to much, much […]
sheqmag_sa
