New perspectives on occupational health and safety linked to circular economy
- Autores: Juan Antonio Torrecilla García, Virginia Herrera Pérez, María del Carmen Pardo Ferreira, Juan Carlos Rubio Romero
- Localización: ORPjournal, ISSN-e 2385-3832, Nº. Extra 1, 2023 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Proceedings XXIII International Congress on Occupational Risk Prevention), pág. 27
- Idioma: español
- Enlaces
-
Resumen
Business model and technological advancement focused on Circular Economy often present both risks and opportunities for companies. The increasing interest in circular business models is already transforming production processes but also work tasks and work environment.
Although Circular Economy offer new opportunities and can bring benefits to companies, the challenges related to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) arise at the internal scope. The impact of circular business models on the workplace might create opportunities but also new challenges for OHS, its management, and its regulation. Circularity has also potential to facilitate the emergence of new forms of monitoring and managing of material-related risks on each step of production/treatment chain.
The circularity (or re-using materials in production processes) introduces concerns about workers’ safety and wellbeing when operating at intersection of potentially two or more safety regulatory fields. Implications for OHS’ identifies several key factors to be considered from the multilateral perspectives: regulatory, strategic, operational and task related.
This work addresses, through the introductory scoping review of scientific and business literature, the question about new, emergent perspectives and approaches on OHS for companies that embrace circular business models or that directly been established within Circular Economy. The authors analyse the regulatory implications of hybrid framework of OHS, as well as the possible impact on workplace safety management.
