The release of the ISO 45001 Standard was arguably the most significant event for EHS managers in a generation. The new standard, at the time, ISO 45001, replaced OHSAS 18001, and followed the approach of other management systems such as ISO 14001 and ISO 90001 and has an increased emphasis on management commitment, worker involvement, and risk control.
Adoption of ISO 45001 as the standard over the next three years will, no doubt, lead to many questions as organizations evaluate their current health and safety processes. Understanding the key differences between ISO 45001 and OHSAS 18001 is an important first step. Below is an overview of ISO 45001 and a list of the key similarities and differences in the two standards.
What is ISO 45001?
- ISO 45001 was published on March 12, 2018 and is the new international standard for occupational health and safety (OH&S) management.
- ISO 45001 is part of a family of health management systems, safety management systems, and quality management systems, and is aligned with environmental management systems, following a harmonized structure for integrated management system implementation.
- ISO 45001 specifies requirements for an occupational health and safety (OH&S) management system and gives guidance for its use to enable organizations to provide safe and healthy workplaces by preventing work-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities and by proactively improving OH&S performance. The standard emphasizes legal compliance, regulatory compliance, and legal and regulatory compliance as part of its requirements for those in occupational health.
- ISO 45001 is applicable to any organization worldwide regardless of its size, type, or nature, making it relevant for companies of all sizes and types.
- ISO 45001 replaces OHSAS 18001, the world’s former reference for OH&S management (organizations currently certified under OHSAS 18001 will have until March 12, 2021 to migrate to ISO 45001), with certification bodies playing a key role in certifying organizations to ISO 45001.
How is ISO 45001 similar to OHSAS 18001?
- Intent: The overall intent of ISO 45001 to create a framework for managing the prevention of employee injuries, illnesses, and fatalities is the same for both standards, with a focus on occupational safety and worker health.
- Plan-Do-Check-Act: The PDCA cycle remains the fundamental operating principle in both standards, supporting continual improvement and performance evaluation.
- Other Similarities: Many of the requirements covered in OHSAS 18001, although consolidated, relocated, or expanded on, are found in ISO 45001, including policy requirements; identification of legal and other requirements; improvement objectives; awareness requirements; competency requirements; resources needed to support the system; and requirements for monitoring, measuring, and analyzing OH&S performance and improvement. These also include necessary resources, consideration of interested parties, and adherence to guidelines.
What are some of the main differences between ISO 45001 and OHSAS 18001?
Structure
The structure of ISO 45001 is based on Annex SL, which is the framework used in other ISO management system standards, making implementation easier and more efficient by utilizing a high level structure, supporting management system standard approaches that are integrated, and reflecting occupational health best practice.
Management System Commitment
ISO 45001 requires the incorporation of health and safety into the overall management system of the organization, requiring management to take a stronger leadership role in OH&S, with top management actively involved in safety management.
Occupational Health and Safety Worker Involvement
ISO 45001 requires occupational health and safety employee training and education to identify risks and help create a successful safety program, allowing broader employee participation. It emphasizes the involvement of workers, safety professionals, and the importance of engaging interested parties.
Risk v. Hazard Identification
ISO 45001 follows a preventative process in occupational health and safety, requiring hazard risks to be evaluated and remedied before they cause accidents and injuries, unlike OHSAS 18001, which focused only on hazard control. This includes a focus on hazards, hazard identification, risk assessment, risk assessments, incident investigation, emergency planning, and the reduction of work related injury.
Occupational Safety Benefits
Implementing ISO 45001 offers significant benefits to those in occupational health and safety, including improved safety performance, enhanced organizational resilience, and the ability to continuously improve and maintain a robust safety management system. Organizations benefit from better risk management, increased worker health protection, and a stronger occupational safety culture, all of which contribute to legal compliance and operational excellence.
Better Health and Safety Management
As Dakota Software’s clients know, our ProActivity Suite™ of enterprise EHS compliance management products is designed around the Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology. As the name implies, ProActivity embraces a forward-looking approach to EHS performance. It does this through the use of an integrated regulatory library for EHS compliance planning and Business Intelligence tools for trend analysis of incidents and action items, helping companies manage health and safety management, safety management systems, incident management, and maintain legal compliance.
Conclusion
Dakota’s Management Systems modules provide a framework for planning and managing tasks to implement Safety Management Systems on an ongoing basis. They contain the full text of widely-accepted consensus standards and checklist questions for assessing performance.
Dakota currently offers ISO 14001, Responsible Care Management System (RCMS), Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) and OHSAS 18001. ISO 45001 is currently under development and will be released soon, supporting organizations in implementing, manage, and adopting best practice.
Dakota embodies a proactive risk management approach to the workplace, manifested in its EHS compliance management software, with over three decades of health and safety management that centers around providing actionable regulatory intelligence. Organization’s seeking to minimize occupational injuries and put a stronger emphasis on a proactive culture of compliance can benefit from Dakota’s services.
Contact us if you’d like to learn how ProActivity can help you implement a proactive, risk-based approach to ensure compliance, eliminate standards, and EHS management as a whole. ProActivity supports guidelines and helps organizations achieve compliance with certification bodies and legal requirements by being able to address risks proactively, as well as implementing a safety management system that will not only covers ISO 45001 compliance, but occupational health and safety management as a whole.
