As Health and Safety Manager for Coffey Mining, Mr Elson is currently developing a global strategy that aims to raise safety standards at Coffey Mining sites around the globe. He said his research trips to locations in Australia, Africa and South America had been an exercise in extremes.
“The challenges faced by our staff in different regions are diverse,” Mr Elson said. “One story that stuck in my mind while I was in Africa was that a Zulu miner will not go to a doctor after a workplace injury because he considers it a disgrace in his culture. He would have to seek permission from a parent or elder before he would attend.”
He said global consultancies like Coffey Mining operated in regions that were diverse in culture, language, work practises and policing levels, so finding a way to apply the same high level of health and safety standards was always a great challenge.
“In South America, for example, our Brazilian office operates at an extremely high level under a very robust system. We are currently applying for accreditation to a global standard, OHSAS 18000, and the Brazilian team has raised the bar very high,” he said.
“In different parts of the world, the challenges are naturally diferent. Coffey Mining has been working in Africa for over twelve years and we have a very strong safety track record there but it’s a very different operating environment. In some parts of Africa a strong regulatory culture does not exist, so while there are rules and regulations, the regulations are not always rigorously enforced. This means our clients are not under the same pressure to enforce standards that would be compulsory elsewhere in the world.
“Poor or non-existent infrastructure can make it prohibitively expensive to take specialist equipment to the site, placing higher reliance on manual labour. Even here, however the differences in standards can be marked.
“If you compare work practices on the way pit samples are taken in Brazil, to the way it’s done in Africa for example, the contrast is considerable. In Brazil, they use surface supported winches with safety equipment including barriers and harnesses. In remote places in Africa, however, they would often rely on traditional methods used for digging wells, which is basically a guy down a hole digging with a pick and shovel and sending the debris to the surface using a bucket tied to a rope.”
Coffey Mining’s range of services across the full mining lifecycle creates additional OH&S challenges.
“In some instances, we may be working on mining operations where OH&S procedures are often well established. In these cases we would usually adopt the procedures implemented by our clients where these are developed to Australian or equivalent standards. When managing exploration projects in remote international locations, however, it is more usual that Coffey Mining implements its own OH&S standards on the client’s behalf.”
Australia is recognised globally as an industry leader in OH&S standards and Mr Elson says Coffey Mining’s Australian foundations provide a huge advantage when it comes to raising standards around the world.
“Coffey is now implementing Australian or equivalent OH&S standards into all 110 offices in its global network. While there are challenges to integrating these effectively into entirely different cultural and environmental landscapes, the insights gained from working in a global context will ultimately serve Coffey personnel and those of our clients extremely well, and more generally raise international awareness.”
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Media contacts
Diana Krause, Global Manager External Communication
T: +61 3 9473 1300; M: +61 420 959 942; E: diana_krause@coffey.com
