The letters SAFE stand for Safety Accord Forestry Enterprise.
The Safe Companies program was an initiative developed by the BC forest sector to address safety in the forest industry. It was designed to provide assistance for companies in improving their safety performance and to evaluate company safety programs using industry recognized audit protocols.
Since the inception of this program, the types and sizes of companies that can be evaluated using one of three different audit tools has changed.
- BASE audit (Basic Audit Safety Evaluation) is for companies that have 20 or more workers,
- SEBASE audit (Small Employer BASE) is for companies that have between 6 and 19 workers,
- ISEBASE audit (Independent Small Employer BASE) is for companies between 2 -5 persons and
- Independent Owner Operator (IOO) program is for independent owner operators of 1 person companies.
More companies are becoming SAFE CERTIFIED!
I have been getting alot of enquiries lately from companies who are Individual Owner Operator mechanics and crane companies for example who want to become certified because they feel they may be loosing out on work to other companies that are safe certified.
It’s a great idea to get the designation regardless because it makes sense to continuously be looking at your safety practices and think how you can improve on them. I am always looking at better ways of conducting my business as well as yours more effectively and efficiently.
I get satisfaction from seeing workers wanting to talk about safety concerns at safety meetings and genuinely contributing to the companies overall safety program.