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Building Industry Health and Safety
News Release from: EHS Projects | Subject: Environmental Health And Safety Standards
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 16 September 2004
Building Environmental Health And Safety
Standards
EHS Projects believes that the construction industry has improved its environmental health and safety standards but is still one of the worst offending sectors.
EHS Projects, one of the UK's fastest growing environmental health and safety specialist, believes that the construction industry has improved no end in how it tackles EHS issues, but it still has a reputation of being one of the worst offending sectors With corporate social responsibility being so important, EHS Projects believe that there are a number of easy hits for construction companies to clean up their act, especially by using Environmental Health and Safety Management Systems to recognised benchmarks such as ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 16 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Andy Taylor, Operations Manager at EHS Projects, said, "Construction is Britain's biggest industry, one of the countries biggest polluters and one of our most dangerous industries too.
Over the past few years construction has changed its tune towards EHS issues, but companies still need to embrace even more radical initiatives, such as environmental management and certification under the international standard ISO 14001, if they want to avoid fines from regulatory bodies such as the Environment Agency or the Health and Safety Executive." "For example, recently a construction company was recently fined £26,000,000 for not performing basic due diligence measures to identify contaminated land.
Should the company have been operating to recognised best practices and supported by an effective environmental management system, the whole problem could have been effectively identified and dealt with in a far less expensive manner.
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"The importance of OHSAS 18001 can not be discounted either.
In the last 25 years, 2,800 people were killed on construction sites or as a result of construction activities.
Many more have been injured or become ill.
According to the Health and Safety Executive, in one year alone, between April 2001 and March 2002, 79 workers died and thousands were injured as a result of construction work." USING ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH and SAFETY STANDARDS.
Standards ensure company's benchmark themselves and evaluate progress against their own policies and international and national legislation.
Moreover the standards help put in place arrangements for continual improvement.
Companies often think that the whole process is daunting, but when broken down into bite size chunks using EHS Standards can be easy, but employing a specialist EHS advisor can help iron out any languishing problems.
Construction issues.
A common mistake by employers is to rely on Personal and Protective Equipment (PPE) for eliminating risks at source, rather than using the kit for its actual use: acting as the last line of defence.
EHS Projects conducts risk assessments of PPE, will appraise the systems already in place and will advise companies on how to integrate PPE as part of a wider EHS system.
A core part of any approach to EHS practice in the construction industry is to develop a management and employee working consultation group.
These can easily be set up and company's like EHS Projects can help organisations achieve grants from the Health and Safety Council to help these groups identify risks together.
Fire safety in construction is a challenging issue as no two building sites are the same, meaning that companies need to always adapt their approach to eliminate hazards.
Again, EHS Projects can offer on-site assessments.
In order to cut down on work related musculoskeletal disorders, a huge factor to consider is the risk to employees during manual handling operations.
Risk assessments need to be undertaken and third party consultants are often best placed to assist because of their wide range of expertise.
Increasingly managing contractors is an important part of any construction project.
A prime contractor might understand how to comply with good business practices and legal frameworks, but do all the other contractors that are working on site? EHS Projects can assess if your contractors are up to the job.
Andy Taylor, Operations Manager at EHS Projects, said, "These are all simple issues to address.
Tackling these can, rather than being an added expense, create cost savings and more effective working practices.
Companies can either adopt quality standards and systems, or call on the advice of professionals who can audit their business practices.".
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