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The Phylmar Group Inc. Newsletter
January 2017, Issue #84
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Happy 2017!
In December 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a white paper on sustainability and worker safety and health. Focusing on including worker safety and health in the growing movement toward sustainability and corporate responsibility, the publication was accompanied by some comments from Labor Secretary David Michaels and former Assistant Labor Secretary John Henshaw, with some excerpts included below.
Next, we turn to a recent development in sustainability reporting efforts. On 19 October 2016, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) launched the first global standards for sustainability reporting, based on the GRI G4 Guidelines and developed over the last 15 years through a significant multi-stakeholder process. The new standards will officially phase out the G4 Guidelines in July 2018.
Mark Katchen, CIH
Managing Principal
The Phylmar Group, Inc.
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| Sustainability in the Workplace: A New Approach for Advancing Worker Safety and Health |
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Dr. David Michaels and John Henshaw, osha.gov, 20 Dec 2016
When you think about "sustainability," what comes to mind? Most commonly it is a concept that has been associated with the environmental impacts of activities and decisions, but sustainability is about more than being green; it's also about people.
Organizations cannot be sustainable without protecting the safety, health and welfare of their most vital resource: workers. Currently, workplace safety and health may be acknowledged in sustainability strategies, but its importance is rarely emphasized. Integrating safety and health into these innovative and proactive strategies provides a transformative opportunity to achieve a sustainable organization. Embracing safety and health
as a cornerstone of sustainability is good for workers and good for business.
- Creating new partnerships to advance integrated OSH and sustainability activities.
- Enhancing interdisciplinary training and education for workers, the OSH community, and business professionals.
- Measuring the impact of safety and health performance on business outcomes.
- Recognizing employers that successfully integrate OSH into sustainability efforts.
- Improving access to data on safety and health for sustainability reporting.
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Global Reporting Initiative's New Sustainability Reporting Standards
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The GRI Standards are the first global standards for sustainability reporting. They feature a modular, interrelated structure, and represent the global best practice for reporting on a range of economic, environmental and social impacts.
The GRI Standards are a set of 36 modular Standards that facilitate corporate reporting on topics such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water use, and labor practices. The new format allows GRI to update individual topics based on market and sustainability needs, without requiring revisions to the entire set of GRI Standards. The GRI Standards are centered on materiality - focusing on the topics that represent the most significant impacts of the organization and are most important to organizations' stakeholders - which supports sustainability reporting that is tailored to each individual company. A company can prepare a sustainability report in accordance with the GRI Standards at Core or Comprehensive level, or disclose individual topics to meet specific reporting needs.
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Watch Part III of the Mark Katchen and OHTA's Nancy McClellan Interview
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This final segment revisits the OHTA training courses and costs. Scholarship funds are available with the help of corporate sponsors and the OHTA continues to find other ways of making these occupational health training classes economically feasible for those in developing regions.
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Upcoming Environmental, Health, Safety, and Sustainability Events
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Did You Know?
Did you know as a PRR, AFIRM or BioPharma EHS Forum member that your benefits included access to Phylmar's global consulting network that provides concierge level service? The Phylmar Academy provides continuing EHS education and employee training. You can save up to 20% on these services through your membership. Contact Mark Katchen
(
mkatchen@phylmar.com
) for more information.
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About The Phylmar Group, Inc.
The Phylmar Group® is an organization that partners with best-in-class companies on their most challenging environmental, health and safety, and social responsibility issues by anticipating clients' needs from strategy to implementation. Our expert client advisors deliver innovative, responsible, efficient solutions addressing client needs and creating added value. For more information, visit
www.phylmar.com or call
+1 310.474.3937.
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