Our Management Approach
ENMAX takes seriously the impacts our services have throughout the life cycle of their use - from the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to the retail sale of energy services. This is one reason why we are growing our alternative and renewable power business segments and have management systems, such as ISO 14001 and 18001 to guide our environment, health and safety practices.
More about our approach to offering efficient, reliable and affordable energy solutions are discussed below.
Our goals and performance with respect to Product and Service Responsibility are described further in the subsection entitled Reliable and Accessible Electricity.
Strategy and Policies
ENMAX has several policies in place to ensure our service delivery is responsible and respectful. For instance, our Occupational Health and Safety Policy addresses employee and public safety. Our Environment Policy provides specific commitments to protect our environment. Also, ENMAX has created its own handbook on business ethics called the ENMAX Principles of Business Ethics and has developed a mandatory training program for employees based on its content.
Our strategy for keeping the public safe around our installations is to make the facilities visible and to post extensive signage. We follow specific sets of procedures (e.g., for working overhead or in manholes) to minimize public exposure to potential hazards.
A new safety strategy called MissionZero was launched in July 2009 for ENMAX employees. MissionZero is designed to reinforce the organization's strong commitment to and focus on safe work performance. MissionZero's message is that a strong safety culture is critical to incident prevention.
We take the opportunity to educate customers about electric and magnetic fields (EMF) when we are asked to conduct EMF testing around their homes. We follow service quality standards and use clear language on our bills and contracts.
Organizational Responsibility
- The Manager, Facilities and Security Services, is responsible for public safety and physical security issues related to ENMAX properties.
- The Director, Occupational Health and Safety, is responsible for safe work practices, including those that affect the public.
- The Senior Engineer, Standards, is responsible for addressing possible public health issues related to EMF.
Once or twice a year ENMAX conducts table-top or actual emergency response exercises to test our system's effectiveness at protecting public safety.
In conjunction with any open house regarding our existing or planned facilities we include information on public safety issues.
We have a dedicated EMF web page and numerous safety pages to provide current information and tips to our customers.
Monitoring and Follow-up
All public incidents involving active ENMAX worksites and all employee safety incidents are investigated and corrective actions are developed to prevent re-occurrence.
We conduct frequent inspections of our facilities, including third-party security checks in more remote locations.
Customers are able to address concerns through our customer care representatives and our trouble line.
We conduct roughly 15-20 EMF tests per year at the request of customers.
Goals
Our goal is to have zero public safety injury incidents every year. In 2009, we had two.
We aim to address calls regarding EMF and public safety concerns within 24 hours.
ENMAX rolled out a new online Ethical Scenarios training program in 2009, to reinforce our organization's Principles of Business Ethics booklets and mandatory new-hire ethics training. The online training program walks participants through specific scenarios that may actually occur in a work day and prompts them to consider the ethical implications of the scenarios in a group setting. At the end of the roll-out period, approximately 26 work groups representing 283 employees had completed this non-mandatory training.
Public Safety
Two incidents that resulted in injuries to members of the public occurred in 2009, one involving a cyclist entering an ENMAX Power work area and another involving a collision between an ENMAX Power Services pumper truck and an automobile. ENMAX has reviewed its driver safety practices, and an emphasis on safe driving for employees is featured in safety programming for 2010.
Historically ENMAX Power has followed normal industry practice in protecting our worksites; however, following the cyclist incident, ENMAX Power modified our work methods significantly, adopting a best-in-class approach to worksite protection. This included a thorough review and change of our practices, the purchase of six illuminated arrow board trailers, two new light trucks with mounted arrow boards, larger and more visible traffic pylons, the introduction of daily traffic protection plans, an enhanced traffic control training program and the initiation of work on development of our own Temporary Traffic Protection Manual.