by Brianna Crandall — July 11, 2016 — The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) recently announced that the Center for Safety and Health Sustainability (CSHS) is releasing its Best Practice Guide for Occupational Health and Safety in Sustainability Reports, which provides occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals with metrics and best practices in OHS sustainability reporting.
AIHA is a founding member of the CSHS, and plays an active role with its global partners to promote safe and sustainable organizations in the United States and throughout the world.
CSHS has launched an initiative to standardize OHS reporting that will allow for analysis and comparison of OHS performance among organizations worldwide. CSHS views this campaign as a critical step in improving OHS performance that will ultimately prevent worker injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
The metrics proposed by CSHS were developed through global collaboration among the world’s largest occupational health and safety professional bodies, and are currently being used in some format by a multitude of organizations around the world. They are standards of performance that are already accepted, understood, and operationalized by many who manage health and safety at work, points out AIHA.
AIHA President Steven E. Lacey PhD, CIH, CSP, commented:
True sustainability of any company is inherently rooted in the health and safety of its work force. Through our partners at the Center, this guidance document helps our practitioners standardize reporting, setting the stage for the global dialogue and transparency that society is demanding.
Alan Leibowitz CIH, CSP CSHS treasurer and longtime AIHA member, stated:
The Center was founded with the goal to encourage and enable improved reporting of health and safety performance data. This new guide is an important step in that journey. Companies now have a set of standardized OHS performance metrics that can help ensure comparability of data across industries. Companies can only manage what they measure, and this new tool will assist in that effort. We look forward to ongoing conversations on how this is used and how it can be improved for future editions.
The CSHS metrics have a broader scope and wider applicability in assessing workplaces worldwide across all geographical boundaries. In addition to addressing OHS needs at large organizations, they are scalable and therefore applicable to small and medium-sized enterprises; extend coverage to temporary or fixed duration contract workers; and increase focus on workers for suppliers in the developing world.
Importantly, these metrics also present the recommended minimum level of OHS performance reporting that is applicable to all organizations. The provided sustainability information helps business leaders identify opportunities for risk mitigation and value creation while helping investors and analysts understand factors that affect investment performance.
The Best Practice Guide for Occupational Health and Safety in Sustainability Reports is available on the CSHS Web site.
