The Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety set combines a seemingly unlikely pair.
ISO 45001:2018 – Occupational health and safety management systems – Requirements with guidance for use sets forth the framework for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system for establishing processes that minimize OH&S risks. A system formed under this guidance—finding success through active top leadership, effective communication, clearly identified objectives and processes, and evaluation for continual improvement—can help foster a safe workplace by reducing injury and ill health.
Occupational health and safety management systems are often used in conjunction with environmental management systems. This is because ISO 14001:2015 – Environmental management systems – Requirements with guidance for use and OHSAS 18001, which has served as the primary framework for an occupational health and safety management system prior to the release of ISO 45001:2018, while varying greatly in purpose, are highly comparable in terms of primary elements like policies, objectives, and preventive action.
ISO 45001:2018 was developed with this in mind. While the new international standard for OH&S management system requirements shares a high-level structure (HLS), identical core text, and terms and definitions from other recently-revised ISO management system standards to allow it to be integrated with systems developed under the guidance of those documents, ISO 45001:2018 shares a lot with ISO 14001:2015.
This is because ISO 45001:2018 was developed with OHSAS 18000 in consideration and designed to follow ISO 14001:2015 very closely. This not only aids the dual integration of these two management systems, but it should also be beneficial to ISO 45001 users who are already familiar with ISO 14001.
These two international standards, of course, lead to two strikingly different outcomes. However, some of their benefits are shared, since both ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 14001:2015 seek to enhance an organization’s processes and improve its reputation.
For organizations who are interested in managing their environmental impact and assuring the safety of their workers, ISO 45001:2018 – Occupational health and safety management systems – Requirements with guidance for use and ISO 14001:2015 – Environmental management systems – Requirements with guidance for use can be acquired together as the ISO 45001 / ISO 14001 – Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety Set.
