Safety: Record-Setting Year, But The Goal Is Always Zero

Safety is central to everything we do at Duke Energy. We put safety first in our workplaces and communities, and our goal is to achieve a zero-injury culture.

We had many successes in 2013. We finished the year with the lowest total injury rate in our history. And we reduced serious injuries by more than 30 percent.

Sadly, three of our co-workers lost their lives last year – two contractors and one employee. In early 2014, we experienced another two employee fatalities. These and other events that resulted in serious injuries are bitter reminders that we can never be satisfied until everyone goes home safely at the end of the workday.

We will accomplish this goal by thoroughly investigating and understanding why failures occur. We will learn from those experiences and determine how to improve flawed systems and processes to better detect error-likely situations. We will also put processes and procedures in place to prevent situations that might result in serious injuries or fatalities, near-miss events and operational errors.