DOCUMENTS: - SAFETY
C-Safety certification and related standards
If the application of management principles to the management of health and safety at work is certainly not a novelty for companies, especially for large companies and multinationals, the potential demand for safety certification seems largely to go through the experience of environmental certification.
The safety certification, as it was for the Environment, has been and still is the subject of ample debate (the autonomy of corporate decisions, the relationship with the law, etc.) whose conclusion can currently be summarized as follows: how it is occurred for the Environment in 1996 with the ISO 14001 standard (Environmental Management Systems), in 2018 a standard was issued by ISO (International Standard Organization) ( ISO 45001:2018 )which has a global value today.
This has taken time, as on the other hand can include those who have followed the development of Environmental Management Systems, in the dual form of the EMAS Regulation and ISO 14001, knowing the difficulties that stand in the way of the realization of similar schemes that must find a wide consent mediating between various cultures, different settings, and even different interests of various businesses.
In May 1996 the BSI - British Standard Institute published the BS 8800 standard, "Guidelines for Health and Safety Management Systems", which represented the first attempt at European level for a management approach to workplace safety.
However, the BS 8800 is not a certification standard, but a Guideline, and this decision by the responsible Committee composed of the main Industrial Associations and Research Bodies, well reflects the debate on the freedom of the company's management choices in terms of safety, and on the opportunity to consider valid similar options already adopted by companies.
However, some certification bodies followed the demand of companies with their own schemes, mostly based on BS 8800.
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