Babcock has reaffirmed its commitment to safety, health, environmental and quality (SHEQ) with the company’s successful retention of ISO certification.

Each Babcock Africa business unit, including Equipment, Engineering, Transport Solutions and Plant Services, has ISO standard certificates for Quality; Environment; and Health and Safety management systems [ISO9001:2015, ISO14001:2015 and ISO45001:2018)].

Maintaining ISO certification demonstrates Babcock’s continued dedication to operational excellence against set objectives and targets, collaborative working and improvement.

“As a company that is trusted to deliver critical support services to our customers, ISO certification validates that Babcock not only complies with industry standards, but also continually strives to improve on our systems and processes, performance, leadership and management of our SHEQ policies,” says Duncan Gooch, Head of SHEQ at Equipment.

Renier Swanepoel, SHEQ Compliance Officer at Engineering, adds that ISO certification facilitates streamlining of operational processes, and aids in identifying potential risks in a proactive manner.

He says that Babcock regularly conducts comprehensive risk analyses to determine and mitigate risks within the internal and external context of the organisation, taking into consideration the requirements and expectations of all stakeholders. Internal, external, vendor and customer audits are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the processes and identify areas for improvement if required.

While executive management is involved in the review and approval of SHEQ policies and processes, all employees are empowered to stop work if considered unsafe and challenge any person’s behaviour that does not match the company’s principles, says Eugene Penny, SHEQ Manager for Transport Solutions.

“ISO certification is an integral part of Babcock’s SHEQ Risk Policy, which ensures that we continually evaluate and enhance our SHEQ risk management system and performance, including our leadership and management for SHEQ.

“We implement, measure and review proactive interventions to prevent injuries, illnesses and environmental impact, as far as reasonably practicable. We do the same for all customer-specific requirements to enhance customer satisfaction,” says Penny.

“ISO certification also affirms that our policies align with Babcock International Group’s primary purpose of ‘creating a safe and secure world together’ by operating within a defined and effective quality, safety and environment framework,” he concludes.