Today there is no contradiction between sustainability and profitability. In fact, as many as 93% of CEOs think that sustainability will be an important part of their company’s future success (1 according to the 2010 UN Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study “a New era of Sustainability”), Wall Street Journal even makes a list of the 100 Most Sustainably Managed Companies in the world¹.

All industrial production that uses energy will be a source of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, if not entirely powered from renewable sources. Especially for upstream oil and gas production where the dominant energy source is not renewable.

Why should we reduce emissions? This question hardly seems to be relevant anymore. Even if we still have people that do not believe in the CO₂ emissions' effects on the climate, there is no doubt that the public opinion is changing. Irrespective of your personal point of view, we are all affected.

As soon as we hear the words safety, integrity and changes in combination, we start thinking about Safety Lifecycle Management or Management of Change (MoC) processes. This process is then naturally always applicable. When you work within a production facility with hazards, you have to follow different standards to ensure that your plant is always operating safely.

Process industries are using various techniques to identify and prevent hazards. There are several different approaches to hazard identification. The many available techniques of performing hazard identifications have various features and may fit all the phases of a development project at their defined milestones.

HAZOP is a process for performing Hazards and Operability studies that was introduced in the 1970’s. It is a valuable structured way of addressing the possible hazards and operability problems when an asset potentially operates outside its original design conditions.

The safe operation of an asset is one of the most important things to ensure. We all know that the possible consequences of an incident may involve damage to people, asset, and the environment. Process industries are using various techniques to identify and prevent hazards and incidents. So how can we sleep well at night, and know that the safety has been maintained using the best practices available? One approach is to use hazard study techniques to understand and prepare for the different risks. This is only one part of a complex challenge where several important factors can have an influence, such as training, safety culture, workload, and process design.

Everyday life puts all of us in situations where we must make decisions, some of them concerning safety. Think about the last time you overtook another car. What kind of safety margins do need to decide to step on the gas?

Imagine that your car changed behavior overnight so that the next morning when driving to work you notice that the location of the brake pedal has changed. Would you feel confused and unconfident? It is easy to understand the importance of introducing modification to the control room and changes to the process in a planned and controlled manner, when considering the car scenario. All operational personnel should be kept updated about coming changes. The most important personnel with respect to these kinds of changes are the control room operators.