Emerging Risk Management Versus Traditional Risk: Differences and Challenges in the Context of Occupational Health and Safety

Abstract

As a result of the important and rapid technological advances in industrial processes, in recent years the scientific interest in the field of occupational health and safety (OH&S) is increasing. This scenario of continuous change generates both new opportunities and new challenges in the workplace. This circumstance allows eliminating or minimizing familiar or traditional risks, but it can also generate other risks called emerging risks. Recently the ISO 45001:2018 standard has been published, which specifies the requirements for an OH&S management system. ISO 45001 standard includes some aspects related to the new hazards, for example during the hazard identification process and the change management process. However, the standard does not explicitly distinguish between the concepts of emerging risk and traditional risk. In this way, the general objective of this paper is to identify the main differences between emerging risk management and traditional risk management in the context of the management system defined by ISO 45001. This standard has been analyzed together with other management systems and relevant scientific literature to achieve the stated objective. All this has been aligned with the results previously published by the authors of this work, within the framework of a research project on emerging risks. As the main conclusion of this work, the monitoring and assessment process of the emerging risk uncertainty should be integrated into the iterative process Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) used by organizations to achieve continual improvement.