Month: January 2016

Integration of Environmental Management Systems

Posted on by Abigail Welch

Environmental management system is a tool used in maintaining, monitoring and implementing environmental policies, waste management and pollution control of an organization. This helps the organization to comply with the minimum legal standards put forward by the regulating body. ISO 14001 and 9001 are certification based on these standards. In this article we’ll look at integrating these two into your organization.

Processes required

Environmental policy

This process involve the usage of existing policy making process to create or improvise policies, it is also used to edit the existing policies to add new features. This is relatively easy compared to creating a new and stand alone EMS system; you can add only the necessary requirements to meet the revised standards.

Legal requirements

This process is important for identifying the environmental legal requirements that are applicable to your organization. It also helps you ensure that your organization is up to date about the changes in requirements and comply with them. The knowledge of latest requirements and its application in your organization is important for the following step.

Environmental aspects

This is one of the important steps involved in integrating ISO 14001, in this process you are require to asses all the processes of your organization that interact with the environment and determine which is significant and which is not. After identifying the significant processes and its effect on the environment, the operational controls and criteria required to keep the processes from negatively impacting the environment is determined.

Targets and How to achieve it?

You’ll need to add targets and programs required to achieve them to your existing Environmental Management System in order to integrate ISO 14001 with ISO 9001. So the new targets and programs are created and managed and personalize them according to the requirement of your organization.

Using the existing system to its full potential

To make the integration process effective and cost efficient it is important to use the existing processes and system to its full potential. There already exists a policy and objective creation along with dissemination. Important characteristics can be added to this existing one rather than starting a new process. Documentation of the control and communication of information of the management already is present in the existing system; this can be utilized for the ISO 14001.

By identifying the existing parts of your EMS can help you save time and effort which will be wasted in creating new processes out of scratch if the existing ones are not identified.

Occupational Health and Safety – A Historical Overview

Posted on by Abigail Welch

The industrial revolution in England ushered in a lot of things including the very concept of labour rights. This in turn led employers across the globe to think more about the welfare of employees. The ideas of workers’ health and safety got ingrained in the above transformations and so evolved the concept of occupational health and safety. From a nascent concept back during the industrial revolution, the understandings of hygiene and safety have taken a definitive shape today. However, the changes were no as rapid as some people would like to believe. Let us have a look at the history of its evolution.

The historical importance

The Factory Acts promulgated in the United Kingdom back during the beginning of the nineteenth century could be dubbed as the beginning of the process. In fact, the act strived to Streamline the health concerns of children working in the cotton factories during those days. This act led to the establishment of the factory inspectorate. This Government organ was responsible for overseeing the exploitation of children employed in such factories. Towards the mid part of the same century, another act was added to the government repertoire such that a restriction is levied on the working hours for women.

Subsequently, a royally appointed commission published a report on the working conditions. It drew a dangerous picture for the workers employed in the mining. The findings propelled an intense public debate leading to the promulgation of the Mines Act in the year 1842. This led to further restrictions on the employers such that workers were no longer exploited in the name of maximizing production. Simultaneously, social insurances were introduced and a law for ensuring workers’ compensation was introduced in the year 1884. Acts of similar nature started to punctuate the legal scenario in other countries as well leading to the firm establishment of labour rights as a bonafide entity.

The act in the present age

With the gradual infusion of modernity and the increasing dominance of science and technology, workers’ security and health are being given paramount importance, not just by the state powers but by the employers as well. It has been well understood that employees’ health and safety leads to a happier workforce, which in turn translates into optimum production. However, there still are grey areas which need to be addressed pretty soon for the system to become full-proof. Let us just say that the hygiene and safety of workers are here to stay.

For work safety, you can get certified here: http://www.sheqcomat.com.sg/Courses/bizSAFE.aspx.