Fabricio Lima on Simplifying Hazard Recognition and Building Safety Through Awareness

Fabricio Lima does not describe safety as something a professional ever fully masters. In fact, he sees that belief as one of the risks safety professionals must actively guard against. 

“I believe that assumptions on strengths can lead to complacency,” he says. “I consider myself an eternal learner in progress.” 

With 25 years of experience in QHSE, Fabricio has built a career across environmental management, health and safety management systems, risk assessment, incident investigation, emergency response, process safety, and global compliance. His background began in biological sciences and environmental management, but as his work expanded into integrated management systems, health and safety quickly became a major part of his professional focus. 

Over the course of his career, Fabricio has worked across multiple countries, legal frameworks, and corporate cultures, including roles with General Electric, Rolls-Royce, and Expro. That experience has shaped a practical safety philosophy rooted in hazard recognition, risk assessment, communication, and continuous learning. 

For Fabricio, one of the most important responsibilities of a safety professional is helping people understand what can go wrong, why it can go wrong, and what must be done to prevent harm. 

The Risk of Thinking Everything Is Under Control 

In an industry built around credentials, standards, and experience, Fabricio believes professionals can become vulnerable when they assume strong performance means risk has disappeared. 

“Control is continuous,” he says. “The risk is always there.” 

He compares this mindset to the elements needed for fire. Oxygen is always present. If fuel and an ignition source are introduced and ignored, the right conditions for fire begin to form. Safety risk works in a similar way. When people stop paying attention, stop revisiting hazards, or start assuming a task is safe simply because it has been done many times before, the conditions for an incident can begin to develop. 

“If we do things automatically just because we know it is second nature and do not revisit what could go wrong, why these things could go wrong, and what we have to do to prevent them, the chance of having an accident is there,” Fabricio says. 

That risk does not only apply to new workers. In many cases, experienced people can be especially vulnerable because they know the work so well. 

“Many accidents happen with very skilled and experienced people,” he says. “They rely too much on their skills and knowledge, and that means they start to underestimate the risk that is always around us.” 

Making Situational Awareness Practical 

Fabricio believes situational awareness is one of the most valuable concepts a safety professional can help others understand. However, he does not believe it needs to be presented as something complicated or abstract. 

Instead, he connects it to everyday life. 

When people plan a day at the beach, they naturally check the weather, make sure they have gas in the vehicle, pack sunscreen, prepare food, and bring what their children need. They do these things instinctively because they want the day to go well. 

Fabricio asks a simple question: why not apply the same thinking before starting a job? 

“If you stop for a moment and ask, ‘Do I have everything required to do this job successfully?’ you start building situational awareness,” he says. 

The same principle applies to critical tasks, especially those where a single action can set events in motion. Fabricio compares it to checking a parachute before skydiving. 

“Once you get onto the plane, there is no time to check,” he says. 

In the workplace, that means identifying the moments when a worker may no longer be able to easily control the outcome. Before pushing the button, opening the valve, starting the equipment, or beginning the task, the team must be confident the right controls are in place. 

Creating a Common Language for Risk 

Fabricio believes safety professionals must be prepared to challenge operational decisions when those decisions introduce unmanaged risk. That can be difficult in environments where there are deadlines, production pressures, and financial expectations. 

To make those conversations productive, he focuses on the relationship between risk and reward. 

“People take risks because of the rewards,” he says. “If the reward is higher than the risk, people will accept the risk. But when the risk is higher than the reward, we must stop.” 

The challenge is that risk perception is individual. Some people are naturally more comfortable taking risks than others. That is why organizations need a shared language for evaluating risk, so employees, supervisors, and leaders can have the same discussion from the same foundation. 

“We have to empower our teams to understand this balance between risks and rewards,” Fabricio says. “When the risk is greater than the reward, they need the opportunity to speak up.” 

Importantly, stopping work should not be framed as refusing to do the job. It should be understood as a way to make sure the job can be completed successfully. 

“Everyone wants to succeed,” he says. “No one wakes up in the morning saying they are going to fail or injure themselves.” 

Fabricio has seen situations where workers felt pressure to continue, only to find that leadership supported the decision to stop, rest, reassess, or ask for help. Sometimes, he says, employees take risks on behalf of people who would have supported them if they had escalated the concern. 

That is why clear communication across different levels of the organization matters. 

“Sometimes the ones people think could enforce them to do the wrong thing will be the ones who support them,” he says. 

Progress Through Learning, Prevention, and Empowerment 

In his current role, Fabricio is more dedicated to environment and sustainability, but safety remains closely connected to his work. Process safety events often carry environmental implications, and the prevention mechanisms overlap. 

He describes QHSE work as an orchestra, with each professional playing a specific role while remaining synchronized under shared leadership. 

That coordination has contributed to strong results. Fabricio’s company has significantly reduced hydrocarbon release events and has achieved more than two years without a lost time injury under the leadership of QHSE Director Stuart Paterson and the contribution of more than 100 QHSE professionals. 

Hydrocarbon release events, Fabricio explains, are spills involving hydrocarbons from systems connected to well sites. These can involve loss of primary containment, with potential impacts to the sea, ground, or watercourses. 

The reduction came through learning from incidents, improving processes, strengthening maintenance, improving behaviour, and empowering people to stop work when something does not look right. 

One important practice is what Fabricio calls “walking the line.” This means checking systems to confirm that equipment, valves, connections, and conditions are correct before work continues. 

The company has also used creative campaigns to make prevention easier to understand. One campaign used soccer as an analogy, connecting the prevention of hydrocarbon releases to preparation, training, skill, teamwork, and having a game plan. 

“If we work hard, train, have skilled personnel, and have a game plan, we are going to win,” Fabricio says. 

The goal was to help people understand the mental toughness and discipline required to prevent releases, not only the procedures and maintenance requirements. 

Simplifying Hazard Recognition 

When asked about his safety “superpower,” Fabricio is hesitant to use the word. Still, he identifies two strengths: simplifying hazard recognition and recognizing safe behaviour. 

“I love to simplify hazard recognition when I am in the field or in the workshop,” he says. 

To explain his approach, he points to bow tie methodology, a risk assessment tool often used in process safety. While the full methodology can seem complex, Fabricio breaks it down into a simple sequence. 

A hazard is anything that can cause harm. For that hazard to cause harm, there must be a hazardous event, or a mechanism that allows the harm to occur. From there, the organization must understand what the harm could be and what controls can prevent or reduce it. 

For example, working at height is a hazard. Falling from height is the hazardous event. The harm could be a broken arm, spinal injury, or worse. Controls on one side of the bow tie may prevent the fall, such as guardrails or restricting access. Controls on the other side may reduce the consequences, such as a properly used harness. 

Fabricio’s point is that the underlying logic does not need to be inaccessible. 

“We understand what can go wrong, how these things can go wrong, and how we can be harmed,” he says. “If we understand this in everything that we do, it is a simple way to apply risk assessment in the workplace.” 

Recognizing What Is Going Right 

Fabricio also believes safety professionals miss an important opportunity when they focus only on failures. 

“Recognize and emphasize what is going right,” he says. “We miss the trick when we do not take any opportunity to celebrate success and we keep focused uniquely on failure.” 

For him, appreciating and recognizing good safety behaviour reinforces the message that the right job is the safe job. It helps build confidence, strengthens culture, and shows employees that safety is not only about correction. It is also about noticing and repeating the behaviours that protect people, equipment, and the environment. 

That recognition also supports one of Fabricio’s core beliefs: every employee should be empowered as a safety leader, regardless of role or seniority. 

People must feel supported and safe to stop work, speak up, and challenge decisions when something does not look right. Safety is not limited to a department or a title. It is a shared value that has to be practiced at every level. 

Learning Across Borders, Standards, and Teams 

Fabricio’s career has given him exposure to safety systems across Latin America, North America, the United Kingdom, and other regions. He has worked with different standards, regulatory expectations, and cultural approaches to safety. 

One major lesson from that experience is that frameworks differ. Some systems are more prescriptive, with specific requirements and measurements. Others are more expectation-driven, placing responsibility on the organization to determine and demonstrate appropriate controls. 

For Fabricio, that variety has been valuable because it forced him to keep learning and to stay out of his comfort zone. 

Today, he continues to learn through colleagues, internal training, QHSE discussions, IOSH, NEBOSH, sustainability and environmental professional groups, traditional safety boards, online resources, and shared content from other professionals. He also values the increasing ability to exchange knowledge through digital platforms and emerging tools. 

Across all of those sources, one of the most important learning channels remains in conversation. 

Fabricio works with a highly skilled QHSE team in constant communication. Common topics include QHSE strategy, global regulatory compliance, lessons learned from accidents and near misses, and incident investigation protocols. 

Safety as a Continuous Practice 

Fabricio’s approach to safety is practical, humble, and deeply focused on awareness. He believes safety professionals should keep learning, keep challenging assumptions, and keep helping people recognize hazards before they turn into harm. 

Safety, in his view, is not only about knowing the rules. It is about respecting risk, empowering people, and creating conditions for successful work. 

It is also about making safety understandable. 

Whether he is explaining situational awareness through a beach trip, comparing critical checks to a parachute inspection, or simplifying bow tie methodology in the field, Fabricio’s goal is the same: help people see risk clearly enough to act before something goes wrong. 

Because for Fabricio, strong safety performance does not come from assuming everything is under control. 

It comes from continuously asking what could go wrong, why it could go wrong, and what must be done today to make sure it does not.