Article Summary
Building a robust, enterprise-wide lithium battery safety and hazardous materials program takes more than regulatory knowledge — it takes operational discipline and a culture built for mission-critical problem-solving. John Redman, COO at Americase International with over 30 years leading dangerous goods compliance at Toyota Motor North America and General Motors, lays out five pillars for managing hazmat and dangerous goods programs at scale: compliance foundations, engineering-driven containment, comprehensive testing and validation, people development and culture, and continuous improvement. He grounds the stakes in a real-world case — the Felicity Ace, a roll-on/roll-off vessel carrying roughly 4,000 vehicles that was lost at sea in 2022 after an EV battery thermal event spread across the cargo deck — and explains how Americase International’s three business lines (Americase containment, HazMat Safety Consulting, and Fulcrum Testing) work together to put these pillars into practice for clients.
Why Enterprise-Wide Lithium Battery Safety Programs Are Mission-Critical
The critical nature of a compliance program for hazardous materials or dangerous goods comes down to the risk it poses to the organization — risk to people, and risk to the safe and efficient movement of that material through the supply chain. There’s always been a safety and compliance dimension to dangerous goods transport, and there’s always been risk with regulated materials, whether that’s flammable liquids or corrosives. But lithium batteries have introduced something the industry is still catching up to.
When a lithium battery has a thermal event, it’s because of the energy trapped inside the cell. These batteries are safe under normal conditions, but when they vent, that trapped energy can make the event quite dangerous — and, in the wrong circumstances, that danger doesn’t stay contained to a single battery.
A Real-World Mission-Critical Challenge: The Felicity Ace
One of the clearest examples of what’s at stake is the Felicity Ace. It was a roll-on/roll-off (RORO) vessel — a car carrier — moving from Europe to the United States with thousands of vehicles aboard, including EVs. One of those vehicles had a thermal event. Because of the high energy capacity involved, it spread to the other vehicles on the ship. By the time it was over, the vessel had a total loss of roughly 4,000 vehicles, the ship itself was lost at sea, and the combined financial exposure — the vessel, the lost income for the operator, and the cargo — potentially exceeded $500 million.
That’s what brings lithium batteries to the forefront for any organization asking what it actually needs to do to manage dangerous goods compliance effectively: protecting people, protecting the environment, and protecting the organization itself.
The 5 Pillars of Effective Enterprise Hazmat Programs
- Compliance Foundations: You need experts within your compliance division who understand the regulations from a global perspective — air, ocean, and ground — and who can apply that knowledge across every nation where you do business. The US doesn’t align perfectly with Canada, or with Mexico, and the gaps widen further in South America or under Europe’s ADR framework. Because dangerous goods compliance is inherently a global process, your compliance division needs the expertise to understand those regulations and the authority to write policy and standardize practice across the organization.
- Engineering-Driven Containment: This is about systematically identifying your organization’s highest-risk activities, understanding the worst-case scenario for each one, and engineering solutions built around that worst case — not the average case — to protect people and the organization.
- Comprehensive Testing & Validation: Standard transportation packaging is built to prevent damage to an item in transit — it isn’t designed to contain a thermal event, especially with a damaged, defective, or prototype battery. Going beyond the minimum testing outlined in the UN Manual of Tests and Criteria, Section 38.3, to understand how a specific battery will actually react — and validating that your containment solution will hold up — costs more up front, but that cost is nothing next to the cost of a worst-case event actually occurring.
- People Development & Culture: Identify the people across your organization actually engaged in hazmat and dangerous goods activity, and build the training and support that gives them real competency — not just compliance box-checking, but ownership of the risk they’re managing. (This pillar gets its own full discussion in Part 2 of this series.)
- Continuous Improvement: Continuous improvement happens through audits, metrics, and lessons learned — the same discipline you’d apply to any safety or environmental program. Every irregularity you catch and correct through proper root-cause analysis is one that doesn’t turn into a serious event. Audits should also look at the compliance foundation itself: is your organization actually set up, structurally, to manage the risk of the materials it’s moving?
How Americase International Applies These Lessons
Americase International brings these five pillars together through three integrated capabilities. Americase provides best-in-class containment solutions — packaging that’s been tested and proven to contain a hazard or thermal event, built from real testing data rather than assumption. HazMat Safety Consulting is made up of experts who have represented the U.S. DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the international bodies that write the regulations we all work under, giving clients direct access to the people who understand not just what the rules say, but how to work within — or petition to modify — them. And Fulcrum Testing is our in-house lab, where we bring in cells, batteries, and modules to test how they actually behave and build containment solutions we can prove out.
Bringing containment expertise, regulatory expertise, and testing capability together under one roof is a distinct advantage for any organization trying to manage lithium battery risk at scale.
By John Redman, Chief Operating Officer, Americase International
FAQ Section
Compliance foundations, engineering-driven containment, comprehensive testing and validation beyond minimum UN 38.3 requirements, people development and culture, and continuous improvement through audits and lessons learned.
The Felicity Ace was a roll-on/roll-off vessel carrying thousands of vehicles, including EVs, from Europe to the U.S. when one vehicle experienced a lithium battery thermal event that spread to other vehicles on board. The ship was ultimately lost at sea, with combined financial exposure potentially exceeding $500 million — illustrating how a single battery incident can escalate into an enterprise-level loss.
Standard transportation testing and packaging are designed mainly to prevent damage to a battery in transit. Engineering-driven containment goes further, building and validating solutions specifically designed to contain a thermal event — including for damaged, defective, or prototype batteries that standard testing doesn’t fully address.
Through three integrated capabilities: Americase provides tested containment and packaging solutions, HazMat Safety Consulting provides direct access to former regulators and rulemaking experts, and Fulcrum Testing provides in-house lab testing of cells, batteries, and modules — combining containment, regulatory, and testing expertise under one organization.
John Redman is Chief Operating Officer of Americase International, with more than 30 years of experience leading dangerous goods and hazardous materials compliance programs at Toyota Motor North America and General Motors.