Safety and security

Why safety and security matter

Safety and security at work is a basic human right. As a global employer, we have a duty of care to ensure the health, safety, and security of everyone who works with us.

Constant care is a core value at Maersk. We see safety and security as our first ethical priority towards our employees, their families and our communities.

Our ambition

We ensure that everyone gets home safe by preventing fatal and life-altering incidents.

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Our targets

100%

Of Learning Teams completed following a High Potential Incident

Highlights in 2024

99%

Completion of Learning Teams following a High Potential Incident

15,000

Safety and Security Gemba walks conducted across Ocean, Terminals, and Logistics operations.

95%

Improvement actions closed

Closing improvement actions identified in HSSE assessment across 354 logistics sites.

Priorities and actions

The safety and security of our people is a core commitment of our ESG strategy. This ensures we continually work to eliminate fatalities and life-altering injuries and strive for as few lost time injuries as possible.

Creating the capacity to fail safely

We work to create open and trust-based environments that are conducive to reporting and learning from safety risks and incidents. If incidents do occur, our safety culture, processes and mitigating actions will have the resilience to ensure that no significant harm results.

Embedding Maersk Safety and Security Principles

Our efforts are guided by four principles equally anchored in safety theory and operational experience:

‘We Lead with Care’ - leaders engage, listen, and respond to what frontline colleagues need, to do their work safely.
‘We Learn & Adapt’ by building capacity to manage serious risks through controls and safeguards that protect people whilst improving business efficiency, using innovation and safety by design principles.
‘Our People Are the Experts’ - inspiring a culture of learning and engagement by promoting employee voices, elevating engagement and sharing learning across our business.
‘We Are Resilient’ by planning for and monitoring supply chain disruptions and ensuring we have the backup capabilities for key resources to keep customer cargo moving.

Featured highlights and case stories

Business resilience under heightened security risks

Protecting customers’ cargo and our people and facilities from security-related disruptions, from increased contraband smuggling to geopolitical conflicts, is critical to our growth and reputation.

In 2024, we implemented a new Global Resilience Intelligence Tool to standardize and better enable site business continuity planning. We also trained 191 Business Resilience Coordinators at the site level, enabling them to develop and implement Business Continuity Plans.

Ensuring global HSSE standards

In January 2024, we launched a ‘Protected by Maersk’ internal campaign, designed to ensure that every Maersk-operated warehouse and depot meet our HSSE framework’s global standards. The campaign was shared globally and in 21 languages.

Protected by Maersk builds on Maersk’s 2023 ‘Essential 8’ internal global campaign to drive awareness and mitigation of eight critical hazards with potential to cause severe or even fatal harm.

Managing emerging risks

Our energy transition creates emerging health & safety risks, which we constantly monitor and manage. For example, introduction of new dual-fuel vessels requires our people to work with new technologies, equipment and fuels that have different safety characteristics than traditional fossil marine fuels. As part of the deployment of our new dual-fuel fleet, Maersk established robust procedures and training to ensure our crews and vessels are well-equipped for safe operations. In our terminals business we ensure that the electrification of container handling equipment is safe and inclusive to frontline colleagues with upskilling and specialized training and procedures on topics like electric battery maintenance and fire prevention.

Annual Report 2024

For the first time, we are reporting on our sustainability performance as an integrated part of Maersk's Annual Report. See the report for more information on progress towards environmental, social and governance commitments.

Annual Report 2024