Letter from the President: help promote health and safety

Dear IOSH Member,

A personal request for your assistance to promote health and safety.

One of the current corporate standards under the global spotlight is ‘sustainability’. As well as the importance of environmental issues, IOSH believes that a sustainable workforce and workplace should also be considered as important topics when benchmarking organisational performance.

Given the estimated 337 million workplace accidents globally each year and 6,300 people killed each day at work, the importance of occupational safety and health (OSH) within the sustainability agenda has never been greater – nor needed your support more.

IOSH, as a co-founder of the Center for Safety and Health Sustainability and an organisational stakeholder, is seeking to improve the OSH metrics of global reporting frameworks, to help raise health and safety standards worldwide. We are now at a critical stage in our work with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as they develop their new G4 reporting guidelines and need your assistance please.

Unfortunately, based on current public input, OSH has not been identified as a priority for G4. This means that health and safety might not be given due importance in the assessment of an organisation’s commitment to the sustainability agenda.
 
You can assist us by voicing your support for improvements to be made to its OSH metrics. This can be done by spending a few minutes completing the G4 Public Comment Period Survey, by 24 November 2011. In particular, I would like to draw your attention to three key questions:

Question “Please identify which of the following topics should be covered in the standard set for all organizations?”. It would be helpful if you could select ‘Occupational health and safety’ (under ‘Labor related topics’).

Question “Please note which indicators should be covered in the standard set?” This gives us the opportunity to suggest some new OSH metrics. IOSH, in collaboration with our partners in the Center for Safety and Health Sustainability (CSHS), will be suggesting the following, which you may also wish to include in your response:

1.    Lost-time injury and illness incidence rate, lost-time injury and illness severity rate, and number of fatalities (all employees – 5 year period).
2.    Lost-time injury and illness incidence rate, lost-time injury and illness severity rate, and number of fatalities (all contractors – 5 year period).
3.    % of owned or leased work locations that have implemented an occupational safety health management system that meets recognized standards.
4.    % of owned or leased work locations that have had their occupational safety health management systems audited by an independent third-party. 
5.    % of direct or first tier suppliers’ facilities in developing countries that were audited for compliance with safety and health standards.
 
Question “In May and June 2011, GRI invited the public…Please pick up to 5 topics that are most important to you.” As none of the topics currently listed under this question is dedicated to OSH, we need to rectify this. We suggest you might like to enter the following topics submitted by IOSH and CSHS (besides any others you may deem appropriate) in the spaces marked “other”:
 
1. Occupational Health and Safety Management System in the Workplace
2. Occupational Health and Safety in the Workplace for Supply Chain Workers in Developing Countries
3. Occupational Health and Safety in the Workplace for Temporary or Fixed Duration Contract Workers
4. Standardization of Terms for Reporting on Occupational Health and Safety in the Workplace.

So that we can track the level of support, it would be helpful if you could let us know when you submit comments. If you have any questions please contact richard.jones@iosh.co.uk.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Steve Granger
IOSH President