Occupational health and safety and environmental management systems

Abstract

Integration of occupational health and safety matters into environmental management systems can bring many benefits to industrial companies. They can avoid duplicated measures and find optimal solutions, because the principles of prevention are similar in environmental protection and safety management. However, the methods currently used in environmental management and engineering such as life-cycle assessments, best available technology reports, and the models of industrial production can hinder this integration, because they take into account occupational risks only to a limited extent. People can also consider occupational safety risks more easily than environmental risks as a natural part of their work. This can lead to the situation where occupational risks are underestimated. © Elsevier Science Ltd.