Managing safety in hydropower projects in emerging markets – Experiences in developing from a reactive to a proactive approach

International companies investing in emerging markets need to address the management of safety under varying conditions. The paper presents an evaluation of the approaches taken by an international hydropower company in two different construction projects, one in India and one in the Philippines. In the first project, the company had to intervene as a reaction to poor safety and overall performance. Based on previous experiences, the company selected a proactive approach in the second project, involving use of the contracting process to ensure adequate conditions from the start of construction and onwards. The paper accounts for the safety performance results in the two projects and interprets them in relationship to external and internal influencing factors in the respective project. It is concluded that a proactive approach has the potential of delivering satisfactory safety results at moderate costs for follow-up. A reactive approach risks exposing the company to ethical and reputation risks due to a poor safety performance before the corrective actions have taken full effect. It is also resource demanding. Results demonstrate the feasibility of turning around a project’s safety performance also when preconditions are challenging.