AMCHAM T&T HSSE Conference 2023-Sponsor Remarks by Ronald Adams, CEO Atlantic
This year AMCHAM is celebrating its 27th year of hosting this signature Conference, which is now a fixture on the calendars of so many organisations, both in Trinidad and Tobago and the region. This means, that for more than a quarter of a century, AMCHAM has been championing Health, Safety, Security and the Environment; all critical areas for the successful operation of any organization.
It therefore gives me immense pleasure to be here once again on behalf of Atlantic and all the other sponsors of this year’s Conference, as we partner with AMCHAM T&T to stage the 2023 edition of the annual AMCHAM T&T HSSE Conference.
We applaud the efforts and commitment of the Chamber and all the companies and partners who continue to share your vision as you work to promote excellence and innovation in HSSE.
The theme of this year’s Conference, “Learn, Empower, Sustain,” is one which is certainly relevant, as we understand and appreciate both our current local and global realities, and the new and developing concerns that continue to take center stage, including in the areas of Cyber Security and Disaster Preparedness.
This conference, therefore, provides an excellent opportunity to bring together a cross-section of stakeholders including Leaders, HSSE professionals, and equally important, those in the early stages of their HSSE careers to discuss, collaborate and find solutions to the continuously evolving challenges facing organisations, countries, and regions across the globe. This year’s theme offers three important pillars to do this.
The first is “Learn”. An appetite for learning is essential to navigating a world in flux. It is important to appreciate that learning is not just about what is studied in schools or universities; learning is about observing, learning is about active listening, and learning is about participation, because the opportunities to learn are all around us if we are willing to pay attention and engage.
It is therefore essential to create an organisational culture that encourages learning and development, and the need for this is notable within the sphere of HSSE, where the risk from repeated mistakes is particularly acute.
At Atlantic we work purposefully on developing a culture of Continuous Learning by providing our people with the opportunities to participate and engage through
inter and cross departmental job rotations and global exchange assignments with their peers in the industry. We believe this active approach to learning, in addition to the more traditional in-house and external training opportunities, allows our people to assimilate both the technical skills and the practical know-how required in this ever-changing environment.
Further, our Lessons Learned framework was enhanced by the development of new initiatives in our incident management and investigation processes, all guided by our Continuous Improvement (CI) methodology. Cross functional teams share investigation best practices, positioning us to be more proactive in our prevention of repeat incidents and help underpin the strong performance of our risk management system.
The second pillar in the Conference theme is “Empower.” As far back as 1998, when this conference was in its infancy stages, the Harvard Business Review described “Empowerment” as the Emperor’s New Clothes, quoting a well-known
CEO, who suggested “No vision, no strategy can be achieved without able and empowered employees.”
Fast-forward a quarter century, and empowerment continues to be an essential element in achieving organizational strategy, recognizing the importance of involving employees in decision-making, and encouraging them to take ownership of both actions and outcomes.
At Atlantic we pride ourselves on empowering our employees to take ownership in all areas of work. As it relates to HSSE, most of you would be familiar with our mantra “We will do it safely or we will not do it.” What you may not be familiar with is the connection between this mantra and our own employee empowerment, which gives every employee and contractor the ability to stop any unsafe activity, at any time, to address safety concerns observed.
This level of empowerment is consistent with the shift from the traditional role of HSSE, which was to minimize harm, to one that embraces a Human and Organisational Performance (HOP) operating philosophy, which is necessary to build resilient organisations.
Employees are not only encouraged to learn from what has gone wrong, but also to learn from everyday actions that continue to work well. This allows employees to own what takes place on a day-to-day basis at their Atlantic, promotes creativity and innovation, and an environment where they feel trusted, valued, and capable of making meaningful contributions.
Lastly, and by no means least, is Sustain, a word, which takes on new meaning and importance in today’s context, as all eyes are focused on Climate Change, and the threats and vulnerabilities that we witness on an increasing basis. Less than a month ago, Trinidad and Tobago experienced some of the hottest temperatures on record, and flooding has become routine with even the smallest amount of rainfall.
Sustain therefore, speaks to sustaining the very existence of humanity as we know it, meeting the needs of our current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and, critical to this is the Global Energy Transition.
At Atlantic we play a critical role in this transition, and, as the cleanest fossil fuel, natural gas and LNG will remain an important source of energy as we move towards low-carbon and potentially zero-carbon sources.
This Global Energy Transition is well underway, but we recognize that it will not happen overnight, and projections show increasing demand for LNG over the next few decades. The International Energy Agency forecasts, that alongside the much needed shift to renewables, LNG will provide a unique opportunity to offer power grid stability, providing seasonal flexibility to facilitate the continued growth of wind and solar in electricity generation.
As one of the world’s largest producers of LNG, Atlantic is both acutely aware of the important role of LNG, and uniquely poised to leverage our competitive advantages.
These include close to twenty-five years of LNG production, our people expertise, low fixed costs, and our incumbency, to continue to create value for our shareholders, our home community of Point Fortin and the national community.
We also recognise that we must work towards decarbonizing our operations and have adopted a very pragmatic approach to so doing, while organizing for optimal delivery through this energy transition. With Environment & Sustainability as one of our five strategic pillars, our approach involves not just ensuring environmental compliance, but consciously decarbonizing our business over time.
We have developed and implemented a comprehensive Carbon Management Framework and detailed Green House Gas (GHG) and Energy Management Plan which considers all our environmental efforts across both the liquefaction process and operations together with our corporate support functions.
Our strategy is underpinned by digitalization, an important enabler to our environmental objectives, allowing us the insights to make data-driven decisions to aid in our decarbonization efforts.
This is but a snapshot of our efforts along this journey towards decarbonization and we continue to work with all our peers and all stakeholders in the local energy sector to develop additional carbon abatement strategies that fortify Trinidad and Tobago’s status in global energy.
In closing, I would like to encourage everyone to engage with these three pillars over the next two days of this Conference: “Learn, Empower, Sustain” and we look forward to hearing from some of the brightest and the best in the world of HSSE, who will be sharing the latest best practices.
AMCHAM T&T, thank you for your usual seamless execution and for continuing to be a champion in this area. We look forward to another successful Conference.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.