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Since 2009, De Beers in Canada has recognized excellence through the CEO Award of Excellence. There are two award categories: Safety Health and Environment (SHE) and Loss Prevention. The award is available to an individual or team at Victor Mine, Snap Lake Mine, Gahcho Kué Project, Exploration and De Beers Canada’s Corporate office.
De Beers has always sustained a strong SHE culture, although we believe there is always room to grow and target zero-harm. And Loss Prevention plays an important role in the overall safety and well-being of employees and protection of the diamonds we mine.
Special ceremonies were held by Tony Guthrie, Chief Executive Officer – Mining, Canada, across our Canadian operations in May, where the 2014 CEO Awards of Excellence recipients were announced.
The 2014 winners are:
CEO AWARD OF EXCELLENCE FOR SAFETY, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT
GAHCHO KUÉ PROJECT FISHOUT TEAM
Before mining can safely commence, the water level in Kennady Lake needs to be lowered and fish needed to be removed from the lake. The GK team worked closely with communities to plan the fish-out, which was planned so that De Beers was able to collect scientific information about fish, hire Northern and Aboriginal people, including elders, and provide harvested fish to communities for use. Harvested fish were filleted on site, frozen and distributed to community events and celebrations, to stock community freezers, for use in an elders home, and smaller fish to local mushers to feed their dog teams. The program was conceived based on feedback received during multiple years of community engagement. The fish out commenced in July 2014.
4-POINT VIDEO (Victor Mine)
The team produced a Victor Mine video that can be used for safety awareness and training purposes. They took up the challenge based on an incident at the site in 2014 where an employee was injured because they didn’t use 4-point contact. The team spent many hours (well past regular work hours) on this in-house project to raise safety awareness at site.
JACQUES DIONNE (Victor Mine)
Jacques is on the Emergency Response Team and, while he was off site, he performed CPR on two people in two separate incidents. Both of the people survived. Jacques has impacted the lives of those people and their families. He sets an example of skill, dedication and courage.
HELLICARRIER (Exploration contractor)
Over the past three years they have demonstrated a belief in continual improvement, Visible Felt Leadership, and have exemplified all five of the De Beers values. Helicarrier volunteered their time as industry experts with participation in After Action Reviews, a Safe Slinging Workshop and a Bow Tie Analysis. They go above and beyond with regards to daily communication with the field crews and a strong voice in toolbox talks. The relationship has grown to the point of becoming one team and ensuring that risks are mitigated in one of Exploration’s highest risk activities.
CEO AWARD OF EXCELLENCE FOR LOSS PREVENTION
RACHEL ROSENBERG (Victor Mine)
Successfully runs the cleaning (diamond) facility at Victor with no safety, health or environmental incidents, or loss of product in seven years while training others on the use of hazardous materials and processes. Consistently recommends changes and improvements from a safety and efficiency perspective and actively engages with SHE personnel and protective services in a proactive manner.
DONALD ST. CYR (Snap Lake Mine)
Through his own initiative, Donald was instrumental in the reduction of dust inside the glove box by suggesting to his Supervisor to install an ionizer which has become a Group Best Practice, leading to a significant reduction of opening the glove box to clean the dust and reducing the risk to product.
GAHCHO KUÉ PROJECT WINTER ROAD TEAM
De Beers faced a number of challenges during the 2014 Winter Road Season that included moving over 560 loads of equipment and supplies on a pre-improvement 120 km spur road. In addition, for the first time in many years there was a herd of over 1,500 caribou occupying large sections of the road. The winter road and environment team working closely with communication and aboriginal affairs staff clearly communicated the information to representatives from six aboriginal parties and GNWT regulators. This provided the opportunity for De Beers to not only demonstrate the effectiveness of winter road mitigations (speed limits etc.) but communicate this clearly and transparently to aboriginal parties and regulators. This resulted in a successful winter road season, all loads delivered without further incidents without reputational risk.