Health and Safety

At AET we truly care about the safety of our colleagues, clients, communities, and the environment. We are committed to maintaining a healthy and safe workplace and fostering a safety-first mindset that is a part of our company culture.

Our Environmental Health and Safety Program requires extensive employee safety training and development across all job descriptions. This includes safety and environmental regulatory compliance for all uses of laboratory equipment and hazardous chemicals. Our staff respect the health and well-being of the communities where we live and work and we strive to minimize environmental impact and reduce waste.

AET employees work as One Team toward eliminating work-related injuries and accidents and responding quickly to minimize exposure to health hazards, whether working in the field, in our labs, or from their desks. We establish and enforce safe operating procedures and we encourage our employees to “always engage and think” about safety as they go about their day.

We strive to be an Industry Leader in Environmental Health and Safety principals

Leadership commitment is key to our Health and Safety Program. AET leadership has made safety a priority, and a key business goal, by providing the necessary resources to achieve our objectives.

AET was recognized for excellence in workplace safety and health during the 2018 and 2020 annual Governor’s Safety Awards program coordinated by the Minnesota Safety Council. In 2020 we were one of 63 employers across Minnesota to receive the Meritorious Achievement Award based several years of injury data, as compared to our industry’s national statistics, and on our progress in implementing a comprehensive safety program.

We are committed to continuous improvement

While compliance with health, safety, and environmental regulations is the foundation for keeping our employees safe and is vital for project and operational success, we strive for an open conversation about safety. We are also committed to continuous improvement that builds upon that foundation, including disseminating lessons learned from every incident or near-miss to help others stay safe. AET’s safety approach is predicated on removing the blame and seeking systematic improvement to fortify a strong safety-first culture.

We empower our employees to proactively identify hazards, to stop work immediately if unsafe conditions are encountered, to mitigate hazards and unsafe conditions using best practices, to pre-emptively seek appropriate PPE and/or a better tool for the job. We also disseminate lessons learned from every incident or near-miss to help others stay safe.

We train and empower our employees to:

• Proactively identify hazards
• Use appropriate PPE and best practices
• Mitigate unsafe conditions
• Stop work immediately if unsafe conditions are encountered
• Report unsafe conditions

The agility of our safety team helped us respond swiftly to address health hazards posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As essential workers, our staff continued to work throughout the pandemic, following health agency recommendations and local/state requirements.