Page 142 - ΝΑΥΤΙΚΑ ΧΡΟΝΙΚΑ - ΜΑΙΟΣ 2023

SAFETY UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

versation with safety, visiting people on the front
line, reviewing progress, and taking corrective
action where required is crucial. Together in Safety
provides safety training modules and guidelines
to help leaders develop a vision and plan, improve
engagement, and facilitate collaboration.
The second root cause is poor incident prevention.
A detailed analysis of major shipping incidents
during the past years across all shipping sectors
performed by Together in Safety has concluded
that they are always the same types of incidents,
i.e., collisions, groundings, ships on fire, lost con-
tainers, and people falling overboard. It is import-
ant to note that these are not accidents but
repeated events that could and should have been
avoided. They result in unnecessary loss of sea-
farers’ lives, pollution, and excessive expenditure.

Together in Safety focuses on 14 categories of
major incident types involving casualties or high-
cost insurance claims. A set of ‘Golden Safety
Rules’ have been outlined for each incident type,
including guidelines and best practices, training,
engagement tools, and checklists for the work
areas known to experience significant safety issues.

The third root cause is a company’s ineffective
well-being and care policy. The Together in Safety
initiative includes recommendations on delivering
a high-quality well-being and care programme and
improving seafarers’ mental health. This is key to
developing a healthy, happy and high-performing
team. There are also guidelines to help promote
and integrate mental health and wellness strate-
gies, tools, and techniques into your organisation’s
From these beginnings, the Together in Safety coa- safety policy, including ways to promote seafarer
lition was formed four years ago, bringing together safety and respond to physical and mental well-be-
all shipping industry groups, including the Inter- ing issues.
national Chamber of Shipping, BIMCO, OCIMF,
Intertanko, Intercargo, Interferry, Cruise Liners A key aspect of Together in Safety is that it helps
International, and the World Shipping Council. In companies move quickly towards delivering
addition, it includes many major shipping compa- improved and sustainable safety and business
nies, insurance companies, classification societies, performance. Its material and best practices are
and country representatives. designed to complement and augment existing
The Together in Safety Coalition’s core objec- safety programmes and are freely available on the
tive is to protect seafarers’ lives while delivering Together in Safety website.
improved business efficiency and commercial
effectiveness, and is fundamental to safeguarding The Together in Safety coalition is working with
shipping’s future success. shipping groups to help them introduce the con-
A detailed strategic analysis of shipping incidents cepts mentioned above in order to improve their
carried out by Together in Safety has shown three safety performance.
fundamental root causes for such incidents. The
first of these is leadership. Visible safety leader- If you get the safety right… you get everything
ship must stem from the top down, with the right right.
behaviours and mindset modelled by the compa-
ny’s CEO and leadership team. Starting every con- Visit www.togetherinsafety.info for further details.

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