Immersed in Veolia’s Recycling & Recovery Branch

In the environmental services sector, risk management is an absolute priority. Damien FONTAINE, QHSE Officer at Veolia’s Recycling & Recovery branch, shares his feedback on integrating Immersive Factory’s SafetyBox VR© into their safety protocols.

Seeking Realism for Accident Prevention

For Veolia, a world leader in environmental services, technological innovation must primarily serve employee safety. The solution was discovered through a proactive digital monitoring approach. As Damien Fontaine explains:

"I discovered Immersive Factory online while searching specifically for 'virtual reality and accident simulation.'"

The choice quickly fell on the SafetyBox VR© for one major reason: technical alignment.

"We chose the SafetyBox VR© because it best met our needs."

Using Virtual Reality in the Recycling & Recovery Branch

Damien Fontaine integrated virtual reality into health and safety initiatives for employees and has successfully made it a regular practice, "averaging several times a month."

The opportunities to deploy the headset are numerous and varied:

• Safety talks (Toolbox talks)
• Training and awareness sessions
• Events such as safety seminars or International Health and Safety Week.

The Benefits of Virtual Reality

For the QHSE Officer, "It’s a new, original, and different delivery channel. It also allows us to place our employees in situations where mistakes are not fatal (they can make errors within a safe environment) such as during safety lockouts or working at heights."

He adds that the system's strength lies in emotional immersion:

"The major added value is being able to simulate dramatic situations like electrocution or falling from a height with true realism, but without the injuries."

What Impact on Employees?

While it is sometimes complex to immediately quantify behavioral changes, the reactions observed in the field are encouraging.

"We haven't been able to measure a difference yet. However, based on the reactions of some people during falls from height simulations, for example, we can say it has a strong impact."

Furthermore, Damien Fontaine recommends the solution:

"Yes, it is a very interesting additional element for driving a health and safety approach within a company."

The Future: Moving Toward Augmented Reality?

Always seeking improvement, the QHSE Officer is already imagining the next steps to make simulations even more concrete. According to him, the next logical step would be the integration of the actual work environment:

"In terms of improvement, I think the next step is augmented reality, to have the same rendering but within our everyday work environment."