WINDHOEK - Vivo Energy, the market-leading company that distribute and markets Shell branded fuels and lubricants in Africa, held its annual Safety Day on Thursday. The Safety Day was an opportunity for all parties at Vivo Energy to refocus on the importance of Health, Safety, and Security & Environment (HSSE). 

The theme of this year’s Safety Day, “From good to great”, invited employees, contractors and partners to think about ways of improving safety performance and culture across the entire business, with special attention on Vivo Energy’s HSSE focus areas of Road Safety, Contractor Safety, Process Safety and Security. The company’s ultimate ambition is to achieve a world-class safety culture, where HSSE is fully integrated into the ways of working for all parties at Vivo Energy.
Vivo Energy’s commitment to achieving and maintaining the highest international HSSE standards is at the heart of its business and in 2017, the company delivered an extremely strong safety performance, with a TRCF (total recordable case frequency) of 0.097.

Events were held across the company to ensure offices, depots, sites and service stations operate even more safely in 2019. All employees were invited to share their ideas to improve safety across the business, with the best suggestions being shortlisted to be implemented in 2019.

James Ngethi, Head of HSSE, Vivo Energy said: “Safety is an absolute priority for our business, our colleagues and our contractors.  Ultimately, we want to achieve ‘Goal Zero’, which means no harm to people or the environment.” Ngethi added: “Vivo Energy has a very strong safety record, but we can always do more.  In 2016 and 2017, Safety Day focused on embedding the importance of potential incident reporting across the organisation, so that issues are prevented from happening as opposed to being fixed after they have occurred. We have successfully adopted a proactive culture of safety with more potential incidents being reported and closed. This year, we want employees to develop their own thoughts and ideas on what’s needed to improve our HSSE performance even further in the future; empowering our teams and reminding them that safety is the responsibility of all.”

Addressing employees at Vivo Energy Namibia’s Safety Day, Managing Director, Johan Grobbelaar said, “In 2015, we reported 230 PIs and this increased to over 1000 PIs in 2017. This means that we were changing employee safety culture which in the end brought us to where we are today.  As we look back on our performance, we are challenged to further improve our HSSE culture to make sure that we continue to operate safely and maintain the reputation of the Shell brand. This year our HSSE score card is green, year to date, and we couldn’t have done that without you.”
Grobbelaar said: “Today we are gathered to reflect on our HSSE journey, as well as share ideas on how we can move from Good to Great. We are not yet where we would like to be but we would like everyone to participate in making the Vivo Energy Namibia HSSE track record move from Good to Great.”

As part of the company’s build-up to Safety Day 2018, Vivo Energy Namibia validated its tyre tread check card initiative, by testing the card at two retail sites as well as on staff vehicles. The tyre tread check card is used to measure tyre depth. This contributes to road user tyre safety awareness and aims to reduce the overall number of vehicle accidents. 
In addition, VE Namibia launched a daily Safety Day teaser quiz, one week prior to Safety Day where staff had to answer safety related questions to win a prize. 

During the Safety Day event, the company had a presentation on the tyre tread card, various quizzes on HSSE awareness, and HSSE awards for staff with the highest number of PIs logged for 2018.