OHSAS 18001 EXPERT » Global OH&S Issues

ANSI Z10, OHSAS 18001 & Sustainability

Thea — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:00:05 +0000

This week, in addition to attending the AIHCE in Portland, I will be participating in a meeting of the ANSI Z10 Committee. We will be discussing the revision of Z10 that was undertaken last year and is scheduled to be completed later this year (Fall 2011).

ANSI Z10:2005 is the American National Standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. As such, it is part of a large family of standards addressing this topic. The dominate sibling in this family is, of course, OHSAS 18001:2007. According to the 2009 Standards and Certificates Survey conducted by the OSHAS Project Group, over 50,000 organizations have obtained certification to OHSAS 18001.

The goal of this revision of Z10 is to continue to provide guidance helpful to organizations in the United States that want to implement an OH&S management system. Another use of Z10 is as a reference document for OSHA’s initiative for development of a standard requiring that employers establish an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (I2P2 Initiative). Finally, there is a desire to ensure that Z10 continues to have relevance to OH&S in the future.

One of the interesting inputs impacting this revision of Z10 is the increasing focus on sustainability initiatives and corporate sustainability reporting. Many OH&S professionals have expressed concern about the lack of attention given to worker safety within the sustainability movement. One of the initiatives ASSE and AIHA are working on together is the development of appropriate metrics for measuring OH&S performance for the next revision of the GRI sustainability reporting guidelines.

© ENLAR® Compliance Services, Inc. (2011)

A Contrast in Views

Thea — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:49:35 +0000

I was struck by the contrast between two news stories that came out in the last week reporting on occupational injuries and illnesses – one in the United States and one in India.

The first was a press release from the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) in which the President of ASSE applauded the apparent drop in workplace injuries and illnesses recently reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the preliminary BLS report, the overall rate of both fatal and non-fatal work injuries in the United States dropped in 2006. Acccording to the BLS press release, there were 153 fatalities from expsoure to harmful substances or environments for all US workplaces in 2006.

The second was a news report from the Indian Express entitled “Ticket to Hell” that reported that 227 sanitary workers employed by the Pune Municipal Corporation died in just the last 30 months. This news report goes on to ask: ”[I]sn’t it incredible that an occupation as horrifying as cleaning the sewers of the city in the most primitive fashion possible should need a newspaper report to ensure something as basic as protective gear and health insurance for those who risk limb and lung every minute of their working life?”

The Future of OH&S Auditing

Thea — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:32:05 +0000

Last week, I attended a meeting of The Auditing Roundtable in Philadelphia. The keynote speaker was Glen Hiemstra – a Futurist. In his presentation he focused on the 9 future trends and forces that he believes will impact environmental, health and safety audit programs.

Five of these driving forces are particularly important to occupational health and safety management systems:

Moving upstream from correction to prevention. As more legislation and regulations require self-governance (think Sarbines Oxley), more organizations are implementing internal audit programs. A key element of these audit programs is using audit findings to identify the need for corrective and preventive actions.
Emphasis on the business case for good EHS practices. Rather than viewing EHS issues as simply problems to avoid, organizations have begun to realize that there can be significant ”bottom line” impacts as well.
Nanotechnology Safety. More and more products and processes are utilizing nanotechnology. Unfortunately, we don’t know the long-term health effects that may be associated with exposure to these materials.
Global economic dynamics related to EHS. As industries move to developing countries, particularly India and China, there will be growing pressures to address environmental, health and safety concerns in a globally consistent manner.
Ethics. As Glen Hiemstra summarizes the issue in his blog: “Environmental, health and safety issues are often the result of lack of knowledge of long term impacts, and often the result of poor decisions or processes, mistakes in other words. But, very often deliberate decisions are made to ignore rules, bury adverse research, and seek short term financial gain over long term environmental responsibility. The auditing process is the check and balance on this unfortunate human frailty.”