Long Live ISO 45001
- ISO 45001
As we reported in June, OHSAS 18001 is at last to become an official ISO standard, in the guise of ISO 45001 (inconveniently, ISO 18001 was already taken). The standard’s publication is still some time off, but the result will be an up-to-date health and safety management system which has even better integration with the likes ISO 14001 and ISO 9001.
With poor health and safety management costing around 4% of global GDP, the new international standard’s impact has the potential to save lives, reduce accidents and improve employee morale.
ISO/PC 283 – the committee responsible for ISO 45001 – held their inaugural meeting in October. Held in London, the 83 delegates representing 27 member bodies agreed that, as with the recently published ISO 27001 revision, ISO 45001 will fall in line with the Annex SL high-level structure. This will mean the structure of the standard will be:
- Scope
- Normative references
- Terms and definitions
- Context of the organisation
- Leadership
- Planning
- Support
- Operation
- Performance evaluation
- Improvement
Moving forward, the committee established a plan for the development and publication of the standard:
- ISO/CD 45001 (first committee draft) to be published by May 2014;
- ISO/DIS 45001 (first draft international standard) to be published by February 2015;
- ISO/FDIS 45001 (final draft international standard) to be published by March 2016;
- ISO 45001 to be published in October 2016.
The next meeting for the ISO/PC 283 committee will be held in March 2014 in Morocco in order to get the working draft of ISO 45001. It will then be open for comment, in order to ensure the standard reflects the needs of users around the world.