The History of Loss Prevention Symposium

The Working Party on Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion in the Process Industries (WP Loss Prevention) started in 1971 as a group of motivated professionals and academics who decided at the symposium Major Loss Prevention in the Process Industries in Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K. that an international effort would be necessary to expand and disseminate best practices and safety culture in the chemical, energy and process industry.

The General Secretary of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, Dr Evans acted at the time as a provisional chair until the status of the group became established as a Working Party of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE) in 1973. After that, Mr. Ted Kantyka (ICI), formerly chairman of the North-Western Branch of IChemE and organizer of the Newcastle symposium became the first real chairman of Working Party, with Mr Frank Hearfield acting as the secretary.

The second secretary of the WP, Dr. John Bond, formulated the following three laws of loss prevention:
"He who ignores the past is condemned to repeat it"/"Even a donkey does not hit itself twice on the same stone"/"Success in preventing loss is in anticipating the future"/"Think before you start".
"You are not in control if a loss has to occur before you measure it".
Since its creation, the WP Loss Prevention has held triannual Loss Prevention symposia, 3-day events which gather occupational and process safety professionals, researchers, scientists, academics, and authorities from across the world. This facet creates a unique environment for networking and exchanging the latest achievements in safety practices and the new developments in technologies related to loss prevention and safety promotion. The Loss Prevention Symposium has a heritage of more than 50 years, with different hosting Countries from the origin to nowadays, as shown in the following:

EFCE Loss Prevention Symposium tradition

The content of the different symposia reflects at least to some extent the evolution of Loss Prevention, covering a mix of innovative solutions and studies with practical approaches and tools. Looking back, the community succeeded in getting a better control over the risks of the operations, with a shift of attention from explaining after the fact how the accident had occurred towards prevention by inherently safer features, designing and implementing protective measures and rethinking the processes to enhance its resilience. These trends do not hold only for safety, health and environmental protection, but of course also for product quality, sustainable energy transition and process operability.

In this period, the Loss Prevention Symposia series has been successful in stimulating and sharing both theoretical and practical knowledge among the Loss Prevention community and considerable progress has been achieved in the field of safety in the chemical and process industries worldwide. Actually, even more industrial sectors are involved and have been profiting from advances in safety knowledge. Oil and gas, energy, pharmaceutical, food, manufacturing companies and the related service industries also use chemicals on a daily basis and are actively participating in the Symposia, benefitting from the dissemination of best practices and new findings.

Advances fostered by Loss Prevention symposia are fully in line with EFCE ambition of building a bridge from science to technology and pave the way towards a safer and more sustainable future of the chemical and process industry.