Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.
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"We also have to fi ll out an investigation report: How did it happen, what was the root cause, corrective and preventive action." OHS professionals should under- stand emergency preparedness around hazardous chemicals and materials, when it comes to both workers and the environment. Waste management is another con- cern. Employers need to make sure they are properly separating, handling and disposing of material. They also need to consider the ground contamination that may occur in everyday processes. "Having chemicals collected in some sort of water process that just gets put down the drain — those are things that then have implications to the commu- nity. So, how is that being handled? In all these situations, you're considering exposure to employees but you also need to consider what's happening outside the building," says Rourke. Much of this information is spelled out in a company's legal permits, so the OHS professional should gather all the appropriate documents and become familiar with what the com- pany is licensed to do, she says. Noise also straddles both OHS and environment. In most jurisdictions, OHS legisla- tion stipulates the steady noise level permitted for a full eight-hour work shift is 85 dBA, but it is 90 dBA in Quebec and 87 dBA for federally regulated employers. Since a worker's exposure to noise generally varies throughout the day, an 85 dBA limit may be thought of as the permissible time-weighted average noise exposure over an eight-hour shift. When the exposure limit is exceeded, the employer is required to put in place measures to reduce workers' exposure, such as engineer- ing controls, work practices, PPE and clearly visible signage. On the environmental side, if a plant or manufacturing site is emitting noise that would be interfering with a neighbour's normal enjoyment of his environment, he can try to reject the company's ability to get approval for those noise emissions, says Dhanani. Ventilation is another example. If a company is having air quality issues inside the building that must be vented outdoors, it could affect neigh- bours and wildlife, says Rourke. "We have OHS laws for exposure to employees inside the building, but now, by poking a hole through the roof and venting that outside, are you meeting those same environmental laws?" ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS There are a variety of environmental laws OHS professionals need to be aware of, particularly the federal Envi- ronmental Protection Act or related provincial acts. Fortunately for OHS professionals, the health and safety laws have many similarities to envi- ronmental ones. "The general duty clauses are very similar, the enforcing bodies are simi- lar, the acts are laid out in sort of a similar fashion… And that's why to centralize it and have it come under the EHS (environmental health and safety) group kind of makes sense," says Rourke. One difference between health and safety law and environmental law is that environmental protection is a shared responsibility for all parties. "If you have a spill, it's every single party's responsibility; everybody from the owner of that site, to the contrac- tor to the person who caused it," says Dhanani. "All parties are responsible for that spill and all parties need to meet with the Ministry of the Environ- ment and respond to any questions they may have." Occupational health and safety professionals should also have a basic knowledge of the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act and the Haz- ardous Products Act. They also need to look at the municipal bylaws for items such as protecting the water, says Rourke. MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS The ISO 14001 environmental man- agement system is one that OHS professionals should consider. It is built to align with the OHSAS 18001 program as well as the ISO 9000 series of quality standards. "They are about documenting your processes and developing goals and objectives and a program to imple- ment continual improvement," says Cooper. "If you look at 14001 and compare it to 18001, the major dif- ference is in some content — they are structured pretty much the same; the alignment is incredible." Many companies are taking a holis- tic view of management systems and receiving accreditation on both the 14001 and 18001 at the same time — which is something Dhanani hopes to implement at Enwave. Both management systems men- tion sustainability, which has been a buzzword in the industry lately. There is an increased focus on environmen- tal impacts and stewardship because it has resonance with stakeholders, shareholders and the broader com- munity, says Cooper. "We want to make sure we respect the environment and we're mini- mizing our impact — that will drive attention and excitement about the product or service we have to offer as an organization… which means people will be much more excited to be involved with us, to participate and to invest in our organization," he says. JOB PROSPECTS More and more jobs are popping up for EHS or OHS&E professionals — it is becoming very common for the "E" to be lumped in, says Rourke. Those companies who may still separate the environmental piece would be very large, such as huge automotive manu- facturing plants or companies out West with a lot of environmental scrutiny. When Dhanani was looking for jobs last year, before being hired by Enwave, about 80 per cent of the jobs she found were for EHS, and she very rarely saw jobs with just OHS in the title. "Companies are streamlining. They don't want to have an environmental manager and then a health and safety manager, they want to bring it together because there are synergies and it makes sense to have them under one umbrella," she says. It would serve young health and safety professionals well — or more seasoned professionals looking to fur- ther develop their careers — to ensure they have some understanding of envi- ronmental processes. "Environment is an add-on," says Clarke. "As more employers are recog- nizing the value of that knowledge in the organization, then that just gives them a little bit extra when competing against the people without the 'E.'" the environment and we're mini- mizing our impact — that will drive attention and excitement about the product or service we have to offer as an organization… which means people will be much more excited to be involved with us, to participate and to invest in our organization," he says. JOB PROSPECTS More and more jobs are popping up for EHS or OHS&E professionals — it