Mercer|ORC in the News

ORC Worldwide has developed a new interactive online resource where EHS research results and best practice information will be publicly available. The Center of Excellence, built on a wiki platform, is designed to foster collaboration among all EHS stakeholders: www.orcehs.org

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A prominent industry consulting firm has floated a white paper calling for the incoming Obama administration to restructure the national occupational health and safety debate by fixing what it calls a broken OSHA standard-setting process. ORC Worldwide prescribes a “culture change” at OSHA that it says would require a structured national dialogue facilitated by the new administration to prioritize key long-term safety and health goals, and for employers to adopt a systems-based rather than hazard-by-hazard approach to reducing occupational safety risks.

Did Heinrich get it wrong?

A growing number of safety professionals, including many ORC Worldwide members, are questioning the conventional wisdom that preventing unsafe acts and minor incidents will lead to fewer fatalities. The questions arise because in recent years many companies have lowered total injury rates — yet the number of fatalities continues as before.

The Department of Labor’s (DOL) controversial risk assessment proposal has prompted a flurry of comments from safety and labor stakeholders, including the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), which announced its support of the proposal in a move that conflicts with several organizations that openly oppose it.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association’s new Strategy to Demonstrate the Value of Industrial Hygiene (aka, the Value Strategy), developed by ORC Worldwide, uses an eight-step process to identify and quantify the financial and non-financial links between industrial hygiene investment and business value.

A presentation on the Value Strategy was the highlight of the Tuesday plenary session at this year’s American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition. More than 400 people at the June conference attended two follow-up presentations.

Editor’s note: ISHN is pleased to introduce this new column authored by leading EHS authorities at ORC Worldwide. Their insights into emerging EHS issues will appear bimonthly.

The European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) took effect June 1, 2008, replacing 40 laws governing industry’s use of chemicals within the European Union (EU). In this column we will focus on REACH’s most immediate requirements that are already affecting U.S. companies doing business in the EU.