From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, there was a public service advertisement on television, usually as a lead-in to the station’s late evening news broadcast. A voice would ask: “It is 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” The question was posed in response to the enactment in many states and cities of nightly youth curfews. The idea was to get parents to check on their children to ensure they were safely at home.

Today, corporations are asking a similar question, only it has to do with their workers. Given today’s ESG (environment, social, and governance) world, one of the longest-standing corporate emphases has been on worker safety. Corporations go to great lengths to ensure the safety of their employees, regardless of the task they are asked to perform. From the days of the turn-of-the-century muckrakers’ investigations of the meatpacking, oil, coal, and garment industries, employee working conditions have been a focus of governments and business leaders. Now, companies actively promote the culture of “zero accidents” when focusing on worker safety. Why? Because it is good business. Companies with low or zero “lost time” accident rates enjoy lower insurance rates, a direct contributor to improved bottom lines. Fewer accidents mean greater productivity, another profit booster since operations are not interrupted to deal with injured workers. Finally, it is morally right – making sure every employee returns home at night and without injury should be the only acceptable standard in Corporate America.

Given this safety focus, knowing the working conditions employees are exposed to, as well as the potential physical hazards they face, such as finger and hand injuries when operating machinery or back strains from lifting too heavy objects, is crucial. We now have clothing that can protect workers from certain hazards, gloves that can protect against injury, hats that guard against head blows, and training that ensures workers perform tasks appropriately or team up with partners when tasks exceed the capability of a single worker. Equally important, we have devices that can be worn or incorporated into uniforms that measure the quality of the air workers breathe and the temperatures they work in, among other conditions.

All these devices, clothing, and equipment are designed to achieve one goal – zero lost time accidents. The safety culture has expanded beyond protecting the worker to also analyzing “near misses,” so companies can design better and safer working conditions, as well as improving worker training. Now, we have the technology to track workers and their conditions in real-time. Employing such software will help to make the working environment not only safer but more productive. The working world is a better place today for this software.

For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed Guardhat’s Co-Founder and CEO (Saikat Dey) and Chief Marketing Officer (Sarah Kalhorn) about how the company is pioneering connected technology to improve safety and collaboration with and among frontline industrial workers. Guardhat offers a proprietary connected worker platform – ability to ingest, manage and analyze unstructured data; easy to deploy monitoring and reporting software; patented, wearable technology; and a growing ecosystem of partner integrations. For more information on Guardhat, please visit guardhat.com.

Background: Before co-founding Guardhat in 2014, Saikat Dey was an executive for a multinational steel manufacturer and mining company. During his time there, a recurring objective was improving workforce safety and eliminating common/preventable accidents. However, after mapping out all the information related to worker safety that should be collected and features/equipment required to do so, Saikat discovered……..…..READ MORE

CycleØ is a European biomethane platform formed through Ara Partner's acquisition of FNX Liquid Natural Gas S.L., a company with extensive experience in biogas capture and conversion via compression and liquefaction. CycleØ will actively develop and operate biomethane projects across Europe, which will capture, process, and upgrade naturally occurring methane gas produced by the agri-food and livestock industries to produce biomethane, which can be used as a valuable green energy resource in any application as a direct substitute for traditional natural gas.

Related Press Release: Ara Partners Invests in CycleØ

Project Canary is a technology leader in environmental data analytics using a portfolio of high-fidelity sensors and environmental assessments to accurately measure and address emissions across the energy value chain. Based in California's Bay Area, Aeris is a leading provider of laser-based gas analyzers and leak detection systems. The acquisition of Aeris expands Project Canary's capacity to use high-fidelity environmental performance data to accurately detect and measure various dangerous gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

GridPoint is a leader in building energy management and optimization technology that decarbonizes commercial buildings and drives grid modernization. GridPoint’s data-driven platform connects energy grids with the built environment and behind-the-meter distributed energy resources, enabling the ability to optimize energy and sustainability goals for businesses and the grid at the same time. GridPoint will use the proceeds of this investment to continue developing its technology platform that makes buildings smarter and more sustainable through data analytics, intelligent automation, and machine learning.

Expro is a leading provider of energy services, offering cost-effective, innovative solutions and best-in-class safety and service quality. The company’s extensive portfolio of capabilities spans well construction, well flow management, subsea well access, and well integrity and intervention. Based in the UK, SolaSense’s well surveillance technology features portable processing software and an enhanced visualization interface for delivering near real-time analysis of data at the well site. Combined with Expro’s 50 years of well intervention and integrity experience, the acquisition of SolaSense will allow Expro to meet industry demand to provide customers with a unique one-stop-shop service for the in-depth evaluation of the entire well and also the provision of any subsequent remediation solutions.

Criterion Energy Partners is a geothermal energy company that plans to develop distributed energy projects to help customers reduce emissions and improve operating efficiency using heat from the earth. Criterion Energy Partner’s mission is to create a more sustainable future by making geothermal energy projects commercially viable everywhere. Criterion Energy Partners plans to use the proceeds from this investment to advance its first of a kind project in Texas and further execute on its technology development roadmap.

Energy Technology Musings

Tracking Employees and Safety Protocols