A Roadmap for Holistic EHS Management

A holistic approach is necessary for a safety culture to be created in a work environment. This EHS article details the type of approach desired to help ensure that everyone in the organization is a key component to the safety culture. 

Heather, Flickr.com

When it comes to their approaches to workplace safety and health, companies today can be lumped into one of three categories: reactive, managed and proactive.

Reactive companies focus on complying with regulations and applying lessons learned from their safety failures.

Companies that take a managed approached to safety leverage systems, policies and procedures to prevent incidents. However, this group considers incidents to be a natural consequence of operations – in other words, they believe that incidents are bound to happen every now and then.

Proactive organizations have the most mature approach to EHS. Companies in this category strive for a zero-incident environment by employing proactive safety management systems and behavior-based safety strategies. These companies operate under the principle that it's not acceptable to subject employees to any kind of avoidable danger and risk, and that it's not acceptable for the operation to pose any threat to the environment.

To read the full article, follow this link.