The ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management System is the international standard that replaced OHSAS 18001 and aims to prevent occupational accidents and diseases. CMB Consultancy offers certification services through accredited certification bodies to organisations that want to obtain ISO 45001.
What Is ISO 45001?
Not only in Türkiye but all over the world, workers lose their lives, are injured or are disabled because of occupational accidents. Successive regulations are introduced, official inspections are increased and sanctions are applied to make businesses take the necessary measures. Yet although the rates of occupational accidents and diseases have fallen, they have still not been fully prevented.
Today, businesses operate within the framework of legal regulations while also taking into account the standards published by national and international organisations. For many years, businesses applied the OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System standard to identify and manage the hazards and risks arising in occupational health and safety.
Taking into account a proposal by the OHSAS project group, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) started work on a new occupational health and safety standard. After the drafts were approved and its general clauses accepted, the standard was published in March 2018.
With ISO 45001:2018/Amd 1:2024, published in February 2024, climate change has been added to the issues to be considered when assessing the organisation’s context.
How Does It Differ from OHSAS 18001?
The main structure of ISO 45001 consists of 10 clauses, in line with the latest revision of the ISO 9001 standard. The basic approach of the standard is to provide a framework for businesses to reduce workplace risks, increase the safety of employees and create safer working conditions. Particularly in small businesses, ISO 45001 allows a single person to be responsible for occupational health and safety and environmental matters. The standard also involves top management more closely in the system, and leadership is given greater weight in the occupational health and safety system.
In addition, compared with OHSAS 18001, ISO 45001 places more emphasis on improving occupational health and safety performance by taking measures in advance. The aim of OHSAS 18001 is to enable the business to control its risks and improve its performance in this area. The aim of ISO 45001, on the other hand, is to enable the business to improve its performance by taking measures in advance and to prevent injuries and illnesses.
ISO 45001 focuses more on risk management and continual improvement. For this reason, the standard contains clauses on businesses, suppliers and contractors, and gives more room to performance evaluation.
Transition from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001
The transition period from OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001 ended in 2021, and OHSAS 18001 certificates are no longer valid. Organisations that want to certify their occupational health and safety management system must therefore obtain ISO 45001.
Key Areas and Organisational Structure
ISO 45001 gives weight to the organisational structure of businesses. The standard requires businesses to take into account the expectations of their stakeholders regarding occupational health and safety. In this context, it is the business’s responsibility to determine which parties the OH&S management system concerns and what their obligations are.
ISO 45001, which also sheds light on how occupational health and safety should be managed for employees, aims to ensure that the business fully understands the important factors that can affect it positively or negatively.
These important factors directly affect the business’s ability to achieve its objectives. They include the objectives set for the OH&S management system to meet the conditions required by the OH&S policy.
Advantages of ISO 45001
A Healthier and Safer Workplace
According to data from the International Labour Organization (ILO), an estimated 2.78 million work-related deaths and 374 million non-fatal injuries occur every year. ISO 45001:2018 aims to reduce these figures and encourages employees to take part in efforts to prevent accidents and illnesses and improve well-being.
Maximise Productivity
Manage constantly changing risk profiles with a systematic process that keeps your workforce healthy, and minimise downtime for optimal daily output.
Global Recognition
ISO 45001 raises the bar in occupational health and safety and sets a new standard that gives suppliers a competitive advantage in tender processes for global contracts.
Easy Integration
The ISO health and safety standard shares the same high-level structure (Annex SL) as ISO 9001 (quality management systems) and ISO 14001 (environmental management systems); because it allows simpler management system audits, you can integrate it into a more comprehensive business management system.
Who Can Implement ISO 45001?
The ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System standard can be adopted by any organisation that wants to implement a formal procedure to reduce, eliminate or minimise health and safety risks for employees, customers and the public in the workplace. As a generic standard, it can meet the needs of organisations of any size and sector.
ISO Certification
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