Safety
Safety, along with our core values, underpins our strategy. We aim to do no harm to people and to have no leaks across our operations. We call this our Goal Zero ambition.
The nature of our operations exposes us to a wide range of safety risks. We design our assets to manage these safety risks and then plan and execute our work with the aim of preventing harm to people or leaks to the environment and to be prepared to respond if something goes wrong.
We seek to improve safety by focusing on the three areas where the safety risks associated with our activities are highest: personal safety, process safety and transport safety.
We continue our multi-year process of refreshing our approach to safety for all employees and contractors. This approach is rooted in a consistent focus on human performance. We ask people at Shell to apply a learner mindset, by which we mean the belief that we can always improve, enhance individual capabilities, learn from mistakes and successes, and speak up freely without repercussions.
Personal, process and transport safety
We continue to strengthen the safety culture and leadership among our employees and contractors. This aligns with our focus on caring for people and for the communities in which we operate.
Our Safety, Environment, and Asset Management (SEAM) Standards establish requirements for occupational health and safety hazards that have the potential to result in harm to people. When our employees and contractors perform tasks, we expect them to consider the hazards that could potentially cause harm and the effectiveness of the barriers in place to prevent incidents and manage the consequences should an event occur. We establish and maintain competence management systems to ensure people are competent to perform their roles and responsibilities.
We run safety awareness programmes and hold an annual global to give employees and contractors time to discuss safety culture on the frontline, reflect on how to prevent incidents, and how to improve performance. In 2024, the focus was on "Before I start work", which means pausing to reflect on what needs to be in place before we start work, for that work to be done safely.
Technology and safety
We are using digitalisation and artificial intelligence to gather and process data from our equipment and improve analysis and reporting. This enables remote support and allows us to take action quickly in unsafe situations.
For example, we have installed T-Pulse, an AI-automated safety monitoring solution developed by Detect Technologies, at 26 sites. T-Pulse uses CCTV to identify and report real-time safety issues and unsafe behaviours. Since we began using T-Pulse in 2020, it has generated alerts for more than 20,000 potential safety issues. In more than 1,300 of those cases, interventions helped prevent significant harm to people or leaks into the environment.
Working with others
We work with contractors and suppliers to help them understand our safety requirements. We strive to improve the energy industry's safety performance by actively sharing safety standards and experience with other operators, joint-venture partners, contractors and professional organisations.
Executives from Shell and our major contractor companies have collaborated on Shell's contractor safety leadership programme since 2014. The programme seeks to identify strategies and practical ways to improve a shared safety culture and achieve our Goal Zero ambition of no harm and no leaks.
Page last updated: March 25, 2025
