MACTEC is committed to the elimination of occupational injuries and illnesses and damage to equipment and property throughout its operations; to the protection of the general public whenever it comes into contact with MACTEC’s operations; to the prevention of pollution and environmental degradation; and to continuous improvement of its Environment, Safety and Health (ES&H) Management System. This commitment is reflected in our ES&H Management System, which comprises a comprehensive collection of policies, programs, and procedures that provide our organization with methods and processes to ensure the safe and healthful conduct of work and to meet both regulatory and industry standards, implementing best practices where applicable.

One of the concepts at the foundation of our ES&H system is that occupational injury, illness, and property damage and loss associated with conducting work are strictly the result of unsafe acts and/or unsafe conditions—not just accidents. In many companies, the word “accident” is used to address these types of events. Within MACTEC, we refer to these events as incidents, avoiding the use of the word “accident” in our ES&H documents. We believe that by establishing a clear barrier in the form of engineering and administrative controls, and the use of personal protective equipment where applicable, we can isolate potential hazards from our employees, contractors and members of the public during the execution of our work.

Developing and implementing a robust ES&H Management System is paramount to preventing work-related injuries, illnesses and unwanted releases to the environment. Clearly defining the scope of work, identifying hazards associated with that work, and properly mitigating those hazards prior to initiating work are a few of the important parts of our safety and health management process. Learning from incidents to determine why they occurred and defining their root causes allows us to prevent reoccurrence and provides for continuous learning while improving our overall ES&H system.

The success of this approach to managing ES&H has allowed MACTEC to significantly reduce the number and severity of work-related incidents to “Best in Class” levels. Since 2000, the rate of severe occupational injuries and illnesses within MACTEC has dropped over 75 percent, and our OSHA recordable rate has dropped approximately 70 percent. Key to this improvement in safety is the ongoing review and reorientation of MACTEC’s ES&H Management System to encompass not just regulatory compliance, but also best practices.