Health and Safety
Safety is our #1 priority. Always.
Safety is embedded in our core values and fundamental in delivering our organizational purpose.
Our commitment to safety excellence begins with our strong safety culture, and is backed by robust systems and programs. Our goal is ‘Zero Harm’ to employees, contractors, and the communities in which we operate.
Safety of our people
Strong safety culture
Through open communication, trust and respect, we strive to create an environment where employees and contractors feel supported and empowered to do their best work safely. Our people-centric approach is underscored by our company culture of caring and high-performance.
Together Preventing Harm
We look out for one another, take ownership and pride in our work, and never compromise on safety. We are stronger as one team and collaborate across the organization to continuously improve and learn.
Safety systems
AIMS - ARC's Integrated Management System
Our approach to health and safety is guided by our integrated management system. Through AIMS, information such as standards, policies and procedures, is readily available to employees and contractors to ensure safe work.
The system streamlines access to information regarding our safety, asset integrity, emergency management, security and environmental practices.
Data-driven analysis
Technology enables data-driven analysis of our safety performance. This allows us to track leading and lagging indicators and better manage our safety programs.
Through our centralized health and safety reporting system, we record all incidents, near misses, hazard identifications, inspections, verifications, and audits. This data is analyzed and used to identify trends and potential safety issues, which informs timely and targeted risk mitigation.
Safety programs
Life Saving Rules
Energy Safety Canada’s Life Saving Rules provide workers with a common and consistent approach in the prevention of serious injuries and fatalities. The Life Saving Rules allow for standardization, support, accountability, continuous improvement and shared learning across our company and industry, leading to safer worksites.
The Potential Hurt Approach
Our Potential Hurt Approach to safety demonstrates care for individuals and prevents future incidents by investigating the cause and potential for harm.
When an incident occurs, a hurt level is assigned based on what could have happened regardless of recordability, severity, or injury. Using this approach, we focus on events that have the potential to severely injure people to put mitigations into place. Based on a scale of one to five (PH1 to PH5), we classify any incident above a level three as serious and an independent third-party incident investigation is conducted.
View detailed health and safety information sheets for each product we produce.
Performance highlights
0.04
lost-time incident frequency (employees and contractors)
130%
increase in audits, inspections and Life Saving Rule verifications
Safety of our operations
Asset integrity
Maintaining the integrity of our facilities, pipelines and associated infrastructure is critical in preserving the safety of our operations, communities and the environment. Prevention is the first line of defence.
Our facilities and assets are designed, maintained and operated with a primary focus on process safety and asset integrity to realize safe and reliable operational performance.
Pipeline integrity
By owning and operating our infrastructure, we have more direct control over the integrity of our assets. We proactively map the risk profile of our facilities and prioritize the removal or upgrade of legacy infrastructure.
Our program includes several preventative measures including:
- frequent internal pipeline inspections
- pipeline right-of-way surveillance
- ongoing monitoring
- leak detection technologies
Emergency preparedness
Our Emergency Management Program includes detailed and site-specific Emergency Response Plans (ERPs) that guide how to prevent and respond to incidents should they occur.
Our plans prioritize the protection of the public, our employees and contractors, and the environment. Updated annually, our ERPs include protocols for a wide range of potential emergencies, including natural disasters and extreme weather.
Extensive training is provided for our people on how to activate our ERPs and respond in the event of an emergency. Our teams participate in full-scale exercises and table-top drills as part of their training program.
Emergency Response Plans
As per the Canada Energy Regulator, Order MO-006-2016 and MO-002-2017, ARC’s Emergency Procedures Manual and Emergency Management Program are available to the public:
Please note: to adhere to the Canadian Privacy Act, these documents have been slightly altered to remove any confidential information.
Learn more
For more information on our emissions management program and performance, read our 2023 ESG Update or review our comprehensive 2022 ESG Report.
