Safeguarding innovation across three continents

March, 2025

Safeguarding innovation across three continents

When you’re responsible for the safety of over 3,000 students from 38 countries working with experimental vehicles, developing robust safety arrangements is crucial.

At Shell Eco-marathon 2024, our dedicated in-house health and safety team faced the challenge of delivering the Eco-marathon programme across 3 continents in differing climates, each with their own challenges and demands. By collaborating with the Emota and Shell project teams throughout the pre-event period and onsite, we ensured that every aspect of the event was considered. From planning traffic routes and management, welfare and medical arrangements to adverse weather and emergency plans, the expert health and safety team led the planning in consultation with the Shell health and safety lead and local teams.

Global scale, local understanding

Our safety operation stretched across three iconic racing venues – from the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the US to the tropical Pertamina Mandalika Circuit in Lombok, Indonesia, and the technical Circuit Paul Armagnac in France.

Each venue required us to carefully adapt our safety protocols to account for local regulations, cultural practices, and environmental conditions. In Indonesia, delivering safety briefings in Bahasa and integrating prayer times into our schedules ensured compliance while maintaining cultural sensitivity. Meanwhile, in France, we coordinated with the venue and local municipality to increase water supply to the event campsite. In the US had to work closely with NASA who were loading into the venue for an event marking the solar eclipse during our event.

Building a safe space for innovation

The infrastructure requirements alone were staggering. In France, we oversaw the construction of a 140 x 20-meter workshop tent—building a space the teams could use as workshops and preparation areas before heading onto the track, as well as installing camping, cooking, shower and toilet facilities for approximately 900 students. As Principal Contractor, we had to plan and oversee every detail from the initial groundwork to the final safety checks and ongoing management, ensuring every bolt and banner were secured to the highest standards.  This wasn’t just about compliance; it was about creating a space where young engineers could safely push boundaries.

Staying proactive about safety management

At the heart of our approach was a commitment to anticipating challenges before they arose.

The starting point for safety was producing specific guidance for suppliers for each event and translating these into local languages to improve communication and outline safety expectations and requirements. Suppliers were then able to create their own risk assessments, which covered everything from temporary structures to onsite catering.

But that was just the beginning. We implemented 24/7 medical and security support, delivered a sophisticated event control system, and coordinated closely with local emergency services. At every location, we installed a temporary wireless fire alarm system to ensure full coverage throughout the sites. This was rigorously tested and full site drills were completed with the students on site. We ensured safety of transportation through journey and traffic management plans, including driver and host briefings.

All this was supported by onsite safety inductions for all staff working at the events. Across the three events a total of 1500 safety inductions were delivered by the team, ensuring every person understood the safety arrangements fully.

Adapting to environments

If there’s one thing you can’t control, it’s the weather – but you can certainly plan for it. Each location presented different challenges, but our adverse weather management and emergency planning meant we could effectively monitor and react to situations as they arose. In Indianapolis, we dealt with snow, lightning storms and unusually low temperatures, while in Lombok, we had to respond to high winds and torrential rain.  Meticulous planning and quick responses were key for ensuring the safety of everyone on site and managing the site through these periods. And when a storm damaged stage branding in France, our team’s quick response meant the show could go on safely and without disruption.

Results that matter

The true measure of effective safety management goes beyond safely delivering events across three continents or seeing 91% of students eager to return next year —though we’re certainly proud of those numbers. What matters most is that we created an environment where young innovators felt confident to push boundaries and take creative risks. Because when safety is done right, it doesn’t restrict innovation – it facilitates big ideas.

Our work at Shell Eco-marathon 2024 showed what’s possible when global expertise meets local understanding. By creating safe spaces for innovation, we helped the next generation of engineers push the boundaries of sustainable technology.