Safety

SAFE Company Certification

The SAFE Companies program of the B.C. Forest Safety Council is intended to ensure that forest industry companies take specific and concrete measures to make safety an over-riding priority. In order to achieve SAFE Company certification, organizations must undergo a comprehensive external audit of their health and safety programs and processes every three years, supplemented by annual internal audits.

SAFE Company audits measure performance in the following areas:

  1. Management Leadership
  2. Hazard & Risk Assessment
  3. Standards, Procedures & Work Instructions
  4. Training, Education & Certification
  5. Health & Safety Communications Systems
  6. Incident Reporting and Investigation Systems
  7. Contractor Management
  8. Prime Contractor Selection & Management

Companies must pass the overall audit with a score of at least 80%, with a minimum score of 51% in each area.

The Timberland Operations and Corporate Office of TimberWest achieved SAFE Company certification on March 1, 2007 with an overall audit score of 93.9%. This was followed by annual maintenance audit scores of 97.4% in 2008, and 95.7% in 2009. The company recently completed its re-certification audit for 2010 and achieved a score of 95.7%.