Global certification firm Bureau Veritas is urging business to take safety very seriously and ensure they are ‘ISO 45001 compliant’ to help improve standards for all. Although ISO 45001 is not coming into full effect until March 2021, businesses are encouraged to embrace the new standards now to create the safest and healthiest environment possible for employees. ISO 45001:2018 was published on the 15th of March this year and it is the world’s first occupational health and safety international standard. It replaces the current OHSAS 18001 and is intended to offer one single set of requirements designed to help organisations of all types and sizes create and implement systems that proactively prevent work-related injury and ill health. “Unfortunately, the reality is that poor workplace safety remains a huge international issue with the estimated global total of fatal occupational accidents and work-related illness increasing by almost a fifth (19%) in the last three years alone,” explained Gregg Elwell, UK technical manager for Bureau Veritas. Customers are also becoming more demanding, which results into tighter deadlines and added pressures. “As such, it is more important than ever for businesses to take proactive steps to improve health and safety management. Although ISO 45001 will only come into effect following a three year transitional period, we would urge businesses to embrace the new standard ahead of time to ensure they are promoting absolute best practice,” added Gregg. To help business understand better this transition, Bureau Veritas has launched ‘Understanding the Transition to ISO 45001’, a paper detailing how the new standard will help organisations improve workplace safety. It explains the benefits of adopting a health and safety management system, while providing information on key differences between the new standard and the existing ones. “The new standards create a fresh framework for excellence and, for the first time, align occupational health and safety certification with other global ISO-certified management systems,” said Gregg. Bureau Veritas supports its clients with the transition to ISO 45001 through the LEAD platform, while also making the paper available for download at: http://bureauveritas.co.uk/white-papers/understanding-the-transition-to-iso-45001-white-paper.