I am Ulhas Polle. I have spent 20 years in environment, health and safety — fire and rescue, construction, pharmaceuticals, cable, cement, engineering and general manufacturing — and I built UPEHS.com and POLLE Safety.
Qualifications and statutory recognition
- Graduate in Fire Technology and Chemistry
- MSc in Environmental Science
- NEBOSH International General Certificate
- Certified Internal Auditor, OHSAS 18001 and ISO 14001
- Advanced Diploma in Industrial Health and Safety
- Trained as a Paramedic-B
- Recognised Safety Officer under rule 74(6) of the Goa Factories (Twelfth Amendment) Rules, 2014
On site, not in theory
I am EHS & Sustainability Manager at a manufacturing site in Verna, Goa, with a workforce of around 250, a role I have held since September 2019. Before that, from 2015, I was EHS Officer at a site of more than 3,800 people. Earlier still: fire and rescue emergency services, construction, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications. The full history is on LinkedIn.
That is the part that matters for what follows. I have run toolbox talks in the rain. I have chased a permit signature across a plant. I have been the person asked to produce a register from eight months ago.
Enterprise systems I have implemented and run
At corporate level I have implemented and administered enterprise EHS platforms and compliance services: Enablon, Mitti (by SafetyCulture, formerly iAuditor), ENHESA, Entropy and Intenseye. I have taken ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 management systems through implementation and audit, led incident investigations and trend analysis, and prepared the monthly, quarterly and annual compliance returns that go to statutory bodies.
So when I say I know what enterprise EHS software does well, and what it costs, and who it leaves out, that is from having rolled it out and lived with it.
Why UPEHS.com exists
I started publishing what I was learning about ten years ago, because the guidance I wanted did not exist in a form a working safety officer could use on a Tuesday. It now holds more than seventy articles and a set of safety quizzes, free to read, no sign-up. An EHS job board and a discussion forum ran here for years and have since been retired — the job board stopped receiving listings in January 2023 and the forum had gone quiet. Stale pages help nobody, so that effort went into software instead.
Why POLLE Safety is free
Most safety software is priced and packaged for organisations with a compliance department. The contractor running a forty-person crew and the safety officer who is the entire EHS function at their site are the people who need the discipline most, and they are the ones left with paper.
POLLE Safety is my answer to that: toolbox talks in English and seven Indian languages today with QR attendance, and digital permits to work with a time-stamped approval trail. It runs in the browser you already have. It is free — every module, no card, no caps — and it is built by one person, with no investor and no sales target, which is exactly why nothing has to be held back to sell to you later.
Safety is not a premium feature.
Talk to me
If you run safety on a site, I want to hear what breaks and what your site actually needs. Connect with me on LinkedIn, or use Help & support inside POLLE Safety — the round ? button at the bottom right, which offers WhatsApp the founder and Email support.
— Ulhas Polle · founder, UPEHS.com and POLLE Safety