What is ISO 45001?

ISO 45001 is the world's international standard for occupational health and safety, issued to protect employees and visitors from work-related accidents and illnesses.

ISO 45001 certification was developed to mitigate all factors that could cause irreparable harm to workers and businesses. The standards are the result of major efforts by a committee of experts in health and safety management, which reviewed a number of other approaches to systems management, including ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. In addition, ISO 45001 is designed to take into account other existing occupational health and safety standards, such as OHSAS 18001.

ISO 45001 is aimed primarily at senior management and its ultimate goal is to help companies provide a healthy and safe working environment for their employees and everyone who visits the workplace. This goal can be achieved by controlling factors that could potentially lead to injury, illness and - in extreme situations - even death. ISO 45001 therefore focuses on reducing factors that are harmful or pose a threat to the physical and/or mental well-being of employees.

Unfortunately, thousands of workers lose their lives every day due to preventable adverse conditions in the workplace. According to the ISO and the International Labor Organization (ILO) - there are more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide from workplace accidents. In addition, there are 374 million non-fatal injuries each year that result in 4 or more days of absenteeism.

According to many health and safety experts - including the professionals who served on the ISO committee - ISO 45001 represents a groundbreaking breakthrough. For the first time internationally, companies of all sizes now have access to a single framework that gives them a clear path to developing better and more robust occupational health and safety measures.

The number of ISO 45001 certifications worldwide has increased by 97.3% in 2020, which is obviously a huge growth.

Although ISO 45001 builds on OHSAS 18001 - the former benchmark for OH&S - it is a new and separate standard, not a revision or update. Organizations will therefore need to review their current way of thinking and working to remain compliant with the standard.