AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO CORPORATE PREPAREDNESS
ABSTRACT Many companies in the oil, chemical, petrochemical, and/or energy businesses are faced with the challenges of providing for and then assuring appropriate emergency planning and response capabilities for all of their operations. Most of the efforts devoted to this subject have been aimed at individual facilities within a company. And while preparedness at the local level is certainly an essential ingredient to corporate preparedness, there is also a need to take a holistic approach to a company's response readiness, recognizing that extremely large or extended emergencies may exceed the response capabilities of small facilities. Therefore, in most cases, there is a need for a companywide emergency preparedness and response program to coordinate effectively a crisis that exceeds the capabilities of an individual facility or business unit. Unocal, a fully integrated oil company, has developed and is implementing such a corporate emergency preparedness and crisis management program. To establish this program, the following conclusions were reached and elements were established in the program to address each of them.Corporate policy, direction, and planning is essential for effective companywide preparedness and response to a crisis.A method is needed to assure the preparedness of all facilities, which is the foundation of any emergency response, including responses by corporate teams.Corporate notification of major emergencies within the company is necessary for a rapid assessment and response by those outside the facility.A chain of command and divisions of responsibilities, from the emergency responders to the senior executives, must be clearly established and communicated.