According to the ILO, safety and health in the workplace is defined as “the discipline dealing with the prevention of work-related injuries and diseases, as well as the protection and promotion of the health of workers”[1], where health “encompasses the social, mental and physical well-being of workers”.

The WHO has summarized the various definitions of occupational safety and health and characterizes OSH practice as activities that:

• Protect and promote the health of workers by preventing and controlling diseases and accidents and by eliminating occupational factors and conditions hazardous to safety and health at work;
• Develop and promote healthy and safe work, work environments and work organizations;
• Enhance the physical, mental and social well-being of workers and supports the maintenance and development of working capacity, as well as professional and social development at work; and
• Enable workers to conduct socially and economically productive lives, while contributing positively to sustainable development.

Occupational safety and health is an integral part of individuals having ‘decent work’, which is defined by the ILO as the “right to productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity”. The ILO states that work can “only be decent if it is safe and healthy”. OSH programmes should therefore provide safe and healthy working conditions for all workers, which includes making special arrangements or provisions for employees with additional needs due to disability or other personal circumstance, such as pregnancy or mental illness. However, there is no zero-risk working environment. That is why OSH should also cover the protection, in the form of compensation and access to medical care, available to workers or their families in the case of an occupational accident or disease.

In June 2022, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work(1998) was amended to include “a safe and healthy working environment” as a fundamental principle and right at work. Consequential amendments were also made to the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization (2008) and the Global Jobs Pact (2009) to reflect this.

The two core ILO conventions that describe the core principles and rights in the field of OSH and serve as the basis for the more advanced safety and health measures described in other OSH instruments are:

• ILO Convention on Occupational Safety and Health, No. 155 (1981)
• ILO Promotional Framework for Occupational Health and Safety Convention (No. 187)(2006)

All Members, even if they have not ratified these two conventions, now have an obligation arising from the very fact of membership in the ILO to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with the ILO Constitution, the principles concerning the fundamental right to a safe and healthy working environment.

Additionally, the ILO has adopted more than 40 standards specifically dealing with occupational safety and health, as well as over 40 Codes of Practice that address OSH across a range of industries. Other key instruments on occupational safety and health include the following:

• ILO Convention on Occupational Health Services, No. 161(1985)
• ILO Recommendation on Occupational Safety and Health, No. 164(1981)

Businesses can look to conventions relevant to their industry for guidance on what countries that ratified these conventions should be implementing, and what would be expected of businesses. Businesses can also consult ILO Codes of Practice specific to different industries, for example:

• Agriculture
• Steel industry
• Non-ferrous metals industries
• Opencast mines
• Coal mines
• Forestry
• Construction
• Ship-building and ship repair
• Ship-breaking
• Ports

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) set the global standard regarding the responsibility of business to respect human rights in their operations and across their value chains. The Guiding Principles call upon States to consider a smart mix of measures — national and international, mandatory and voluntary — to foster business respect for human rights.

OSH laws differ around the world, with different nations implementing and enforcing their own laws. There are also regional laws and regulations to consider, such as European Union directives on safety and health at work. OSH requirements also differ dramatically between different industries and employment types depending on the risks that the workers face and the activities undertaken. Businesses should check the safety and health laws in their countries of operation and require that suppliers adhere to all safety and health laws in their own countries of operation. For detailed information on country legislation, businesses can refer to ILO’s LEGOSH and NORMLEX database, which provides information on country ratifications of ILO conventions and links to national legislation.Companies are increasingly subject to non-financial reporting requirements and due diligence obligations in the jurisdictions in which they operate, which often include disclosures on their performance. There are several high-profile examples of national legislation that specifically mandate human rights-related reporting and other positive legal duties, such as due diligence, including the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act 2015, Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act 2010, the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law 2017, the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains 2023 and the Norwegian Transparency Act 2022.

Also, in 2021 the Netherlands submitted a Bill for Responsible and Sustainable International Business Conduct, and the European Commission announced its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). This Directive is likely to come into force between 2025 and 2027 and will make human rights and environmental due diligence mandatory for larger companies.

These mandatory due diligence and disclosure laws require companies to publicly communicate their efforts to address actual and potential human rights impacts, including health and safety violations. Failure to comply with these obligations leads to real legal risk for companies.

The prevention of inadequate safety and health in the workplace requires an understanding of its underlying causes and the considerations of a wide range of issues that often interfere and reinforce one another.

Key risk factors include:

• Weak national occupational safety and health systems, lack of Government capacity to develop and implement OSH policies and programmes, or underdeveloped OSH qualification frameworks that lead to a scarcity of OSH specialists and services.
• Poor regulatory framework that may not adequately cover all sectors, groups of workers, or occupational hazards.
• Poorly enforced domestic laws can result in inadequate operations of labour inspectorates, poorly planned inspections and insufficient training of labour inspectors, as well as potential corruption.
• Prevailing work culture may not prioritize the value of prevention. If hazardous activities and substances are not properly labelled or explained, workers may not know the risks they face.
• Shortage of decent work can lead workers to accept roles or undertake dangerous or harmful work out of desperation for work.
• High proportion of workers in the informal economy can make it difficult to trace supply chains and present significant challenges for businesses implementing OSH processes. Additionally, informal workers may not be reporting OSH risks or issues for fear of losing work.
• Discrimination or cultural stigma may lead workers to hide disabilities from employers or prevent employers from making adequate protections for affected persons, for instance not hiring people with physical disabilities.

Safety and health risks exist in all industries and sectors. Every worker has the right to health, and hazards to health exist for all people in everyday life, including in the workplace. Industries that may not seem particularly hazardous — for instance office work — can still present OSH risks, such as trips and falls over office equipment, back pain from sitting at a computer or fire safety in buildings. The ILO has a helpful encyclopedia on OSH, available here.

The following industries present particularly high levels of risk. To identify potential OSH risks for other industries, companies can access the CSR Risk Check.

According to the ILO, agriculture with over 1.3billion workers worldwide is one of the three most dangerous industries (alongside construction and mining). Safety and health risks are higher for informal/undocumented workers than for formally employed workers, as they are less likely to have safety and health protections in place.

Agriculture-specific risk factors include the following:

• Physical and manual labour: Many agricultural jobs require physical and manual labour, often outdoors. This presents immediate physical risks to the safety and health of workers, as without proper training or protection workers could become ill from exposure to the elements, exhaustion or repetitive physical movement or overexertion.
• Harmful chemicals: Agricultural jobs often involve chemicals which can be harmful to workers, especially if protective equipment is not provided. Fertilizers and pesticides can cause respiratory diseases, and some can be fatally poisonous if ingested.
• Women: Women are particularly at risk from working with chemicals and pesticides, as many of these chemicals can affect fertility or have harmful impacts on fetuses in pregnant women. Female agricultural workers are also vulnerable to sexual harassment and violence.
• Equipment and machinery: Many roles in the agriculture industry require machinery or equipment, such as chainsaws in forestry, machetes in manual sugar cane harvesting or tractors in pastoral farming. These machines can cause accidents and injuries without proper selection of safe equipment, training, maintenance and protective equipment.
• Seasonal work: Agricultural work is often seasonal, and many workers will be paid based on their output as opposed to a set wage. This can cause workers to undertake long hours and overexert themselves (for instance carrying heavy weights) to achieve the best payments. This can not only cause physical risks to safety and health but also mental ill-health through stress and exhaustion.
• Proximity to other workers: Seasonal and migrant work can also exacerbate the risks of communicable diseases spreading, as workers can live and work in close contact. Reports show that temporary migrant worker accommodation was a ‘hot spot’ for COVID-19 transmission during the global pandemic. This can also apply to other communicable diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
• Remoteness: A lot of agricultural work is done in remote locations where safety and health protections may be hard to implement. Some businesses may also take advantage of the remote locations and not provide proper safety and health protections, as labour inspectors are unlikely to check remote sites.
• Child labour: Children under the age of employment may be engaged in agricultural undertakings, where they may be involved in hazardous occupations. According to the latest ILO estimates, the prevalence of child labour in rural areas is about three times higher than in urban settings. For many young children, agriculture often serves as an entry point to the labour market.

The construction industry poses many risks to workers’ safety and health, and is another of the top three most hazardous industries according to the ILO. Even in countries where safety and health regulations are well enforced and adequate approaches are taken by companies, accidents can still happen. In countries where there is a lower commitment of companies and weak enforcement of safety and health rules, construction environments can be deadly. Since construction is an activity that is directly or indirectly relevant to all sectors, it is important for businesses to consider construction-related safety and health risk exposures across their value chain.

Construction industry specific risk factors include the following:

• Methods of work: Working at height, in trenches or with heavy machinery can be dangerous, particularly if risks are not adequately assessed, if engineering and administrative controls are not in place, if personal protective equipment is not provided free of charge to workers, if activities of different subcontractors are not coordinated, and if inadequate training has been given to workers on how to do their jobs safely.
• Materials: Many of the materials used in construction can also be dangerous, such as heavy stones or steel, and can cause injury or death if these fall or trap workers.
• Poor safe and health on sites: In countries where employers do not ensure construction sites under their control are safe and healthy, as reasonably as possible, and where safety and health regulations are not well enforced, many construction workers can find themselves exposed to uncontrolled risks, or without PPE or other safety equipment, leaving them vulnerable to injuries and accidents. Inadequate living conditions for workers of major construction projects, many of whom are migrant workers, increase the risk of transmission of communicable diseases.

The mining industry is the third most dangerous industry for workers according to the ILO. Mining poses a range of OSH risks to workers, as well as to communities surrounding mining and refining sites. Immediate physical dangers to workers in mines are compounded by long-term disease and sickness that can develop due to mining conditions over time. Small scale mining is often informal, and conditions are “far from conforming with international and national labour standards”, according to the ILO. It is estimated that small scale mining accident rates are six to seven times higher than large scale mining operations, even in developed countries. There have been many notable mining disasters in developed and developing countries over the last 20 years, including the Brumadinho dam collapse (Brazil), the Sago mine explosion (USA) and the Ulyanovskaya mine explosion (Russia), in addition to regularly reported smaller incidents of deaths in mines.

Mining-specific risk factors include the following:

• Underground mines: Working underground in confined spaces, which are often dark and have limited ways of evacuating or escaping, is inherently dangerous. Moving and working in extremely low spaces poses a risk to the workers’ body posture and can lead to physical pain and shorter life spans. The risk is compounded by the likelihood of gases and chemicals being found underground that can ignite causing explosions and fires.
• Heavy machinery: Working with heavy machinery, including industrial diggers and trucks, large drills, rock crushers and even explosives can lead to risks of being caught in or crushed by machinery. The vibration from machinery can result in musculoskeletal disorders and even paralysis if the vibration or ‘shock’ is significant enough. Where safety and health is not planned, safe equipment is not selected or properly maintained, operations are not coordinated, and workers are not properly trained or not provided adequate PPE, the risk of accidents or even death grows exponentially.
• Air pollution: Dust and particles released from mining can cause long-term respiratory diseases if they are inhaled by workers. Common respiratory diseases from mining include bronchitis, silicosis and pneumoconiosis.
• Loud noises: Exposure to loud noises, such as mining machinery, falling rocks and explosions, can result in hearing disorders for workers, including hearing impairment, hearing loss and conditions like tinnitus.
• Waste storage: Effluents and waste from mining is often stored in pond-like structures called tailings. These can become poisonous and toxic, can poison nearby soil or waterways through a process called ‘seepage’, and can in some cases become flammable, presenting a fire risk. Tailingscan ‘leak’, causing the effluent to escape leading to damage to nearby land and communities, sometimes to catastrophic effect, such as in the Vale dam
• Diseases: Mining activities are often located in or near places with highly prevalent communicable diseases — such as tuberculosis and malaria. In addition, as mining is still a male dominated industry and particularly when mines are in impoverished areas, workers paying for sex is common. This can lead to a risk of HIV/AIDSin workers, and the surrounding communities.

The oil and gas industry can be dangerous for workers. Both onshore and offshore work requires a high level of skill and strict safety and health measures to keep workers safe. Extensive research has been done on the dangers of working with oil, gas and related substances, both in day-to-day work activities and the long-term health implications of exposure to substances.

Oil and gas-specific risk factors include the following:

• Extraction sites: The construction, maintenance and installation of oil and gas extraction sites (for instance oil rigs at sea) is dangerous due to the machinery used, and the hazards that working at sea can cause. Once constructed, there are significant risks to workers such as falling from heights, drowning and hypothermia.
• Flammable products: Oil and gas products are usually highly flammable, which makes the risk of explosions and fires high. This can destroy facilities, cause burns, respiratory problems or even death, and can have devastating effects on the local environment and communities.
• Mental illness: Mental illness is also a risk for those working in the oil and gas industry, as a lot of workers are required to work away from home for long periods of time and in high pressure roles. Depression, anxiety and stress-related illnesses can be common in these environments.

The fashion and apparel industry has a range of safety and health issues for businesses to consider. As well as direct risks to workers in their day-to-day activities — such as using sewing machinery or chemical dyes — industry-wide issues with the safety of textile factories and excessive working hours have been identified in the manufacturing stages in developing countries. The risks found in the agricultural sector apply to workers sourcing raw materials (such as rearing cattle for leather or picking cotton) in the fashion and apparel industry. Women represent an average of 68% of the garment workforce and 45% of the textile sector workforce, which means that OSH issues and incidents in this sector affect mostly women.

Fashion and apparel specific risk factors include the following:

• Subcontracting: This industry features a lot of subcontracting and outsourcing, making tracing where a product was made and under what conditions difficult. A lot of garment workers are also employed, formally and informally, in homeworking with limited OSH protections and PPE, which makes preventing and recording OSH issues difficult.
• Dangerous activities: Certain activities specific to this industry can be dangerous to health, such as the process of sandblasted denim and using certain dyes to change the colour of textiles. Some brands, such as ASOS, now prohibit or are phasing out these activities due to their dangerous nature.
• Cost vs profit: The increasingly low cost of fashion and apparel items means that factories and manufacturers in the supply chain must reduce their own costs to make profit. This can include cutting corners with safety and health, such as working in unsafe buildings or failing to provide PPE for workers. The Rana Plaza disaster of 2013 is an example of unsafe working conditions leading to the deaths of 1,132 people.

OSH is an important right of all workers across the world and improved transparency and due diligence can ensure that this becomes a reality. This section outlines due diligence steps that companies can take to reduce safety and health risks in their operations and supply chains. The described due diligence steps are aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Further information on UNGPs is provided in the ‘Key Human Rights Due Diligence Frameworks’ section below or in the Introduction.

While the below steps provide guidance on safety and health risks in particular, it is generally more resource-efficient for companies to ‘streamline’ their human rights due diligence processes by also identifying and addressing other relevant human rights issues (e.g. child labour, forced labour, discrimination, freedom of association) at the same time.

In many countries it is a legal requirement for businesses to have a safety and health policy and associated procedures. However, the extent to which a policy is communicated to workers or suppliers and implemented throughout the business often varies.

A safety and health policy should be informed by the legal requirements in the country the business is registered in, as well as the requirements of other countries that the business operates in. If a business operates in multiple countries and there are higher standards of safety and health or protections for workers, it should be reflected in the policy. Suppliers’ code of conduct should include safety and health requirements alongside other human rights requirements. Because work-related injury can never be fully eliminated, OSH policy should integrate the workers’ protection and cover their compensation in case of loss of earning and need of medical care. For companies operating in multiple countries, OSH policy on workers’ protection and compensation may need to be specified for each country according to local legal requirements.

Examples of stand-alone OSH policies include Marshalls Plc and LEGO Group. Examples of policies that combine OSH with other aspects, like environmental protection, include LG’s ‘Energy, Environment, Safety and Health’ policy and Anglo American’s SHE Way policy (Safety, Health and Environment). OSH commitments are commonly included in supplier or business codes of conduct, such as ASOS’ Supplier Ethical Code, which has OSH requirements for the whole supply chain clearly articulated.

Businesses may also consider aligning their policies with relevant industry-wide or cross-industry policy commitments, for example:

• Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct
• Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code
• amfori BSCI Code of Conduct
• Fair Labor Association (FLA) Code of Conduct

Assessing OSH risks is often a different process to assessing other human rights risks, such as child labour, forced labour or non-discrimination. OSH risk assessments are often legally required. As such, OSH risk assessment methodologies are well established and detailed. Examples of risk assessment guidelines for companies in particular industries or countries include:

• IPIECA Health Risk Assessmentguidelines for companies in the oil and gas industry
• International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM)’s Good Practice Guidance on Occupational Health Risk Assessment
• UK Government’s Health and Safety Executive recommendations on OSH risk assessments

Many companies will also have a clear distinction between the OSH risks of their own operations and those of the supply chain, with the responsibility for the latter being placed on suppliers in most cases. OSH risk assessments on own operations can be detailed as there is oversight of all processes, facilities, activities performed and substances used. Supply chain OSH risk assessments can usually be conducted using quantitative data and country risk profiles, as well as specific risk data on industry activities or known substances.

Safety and health risk assessments may require specialists and technical experts when looking at physical activities within a business and its supply chain. For instance, a supply chain that uses hazardous substances should ensure experts are consulted so the latest information and best practice — that may not be known by individuals in the business — is included. Businesses rarely make their OSH risk assessments public, but some company reports will include risk assessment results or risk profiling of OSH issues, such as Anglo American’s 2020 Sustainability Report.

The actions and systems that a company will need to apply will vary depending on the outcomes of its safety and health risk assessment. Many businesses will follow and establish an OSH management protocol, such as the processes laid out in ISO45001, or other equivalent industry or country standard, such as those of the UK Managing for Health and Safety (HSG65) recommendations. Immediate actions will include embedding policies and protocols into operations to prevent risks and keep workers safe and healthy. This may involve developing new ways of working, buying new machinery or equipment to automate dangerous processes, or adapting processes to make them safer for workers (e.g. changing the protocol for shift patterns to ensure workers get adequate rest in between shifts).

Other examples of taking action on safety and health impacts include:

• Appointment of workers’ safety delegates and workers’ safety and health committees: As provided in ILO Convention on Occupational Safety and Health, 1981, No. 155 and ILO Recommendation on Occupational Safety and Health, 1981, No. 164, and also emphasized in the ILO OSH 2001 Guidelines, cooperation between employers and workers is critical for successfully protecting the safety and health of employees. This may include the appointment of workers’ safety delegates, workers’ safety and health committees, and/or joint safety and health committees with equal representation with employers’ representatives. Such committees or, as appropriate, other workers’ representatives should be given enough information on occupational risks and safety and health measures. These committees should also be encouraged to propose measures on the subject and consulted when major new safety and health measures are envisaged. They should further be able to communicate with workers on safety and health matters during working hours, have reasonable time during paid working hours to exercise their safety and health functions and to receive training related to these functions.
• Safety and health training of employees and suppliers: Another important component of any OSH management system is the information and training of company employees and suppliers, which may cover safety and health laws, company policies, procedures to protect workers, safe use and maintenance of machinery, substances and equipment, and any tailored or additional safety and health procedures for workers with different needs (for instance workers with disabilities or pregnant women). Training can be delivered in a range of formats, such as online videos, e-learns, in-person sessions or supplier round tables.
• For most businesses, all employees will need some form of safety and health training, even if their job is not considered dangerous. For instance, office workers will still require training on how to exit the building safely in the event of an emergency and may receive advice on correct set-up of computer equipment to prevent musculoskeletal injuries from bad posture. Training can also be highly specialized to a worker’s role to ensure they are prepared and able to do their job safely and confidently, such as training for workers operating at height or underground. Other examples of safety and health training can include delivering mental health and well-being training to employees, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers’s (PwC) ‘Green Light to Talk’ campaign.
• Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) can provide the necessary expertise, guidance and economies of scale to address health and safety challenges in a responsible, sector-specific way. Such MSIs can also help companies learn from different stakeholder groups including business, government, civil society and inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations. Examples include: the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), which provides roundtable discussions and shared resources to member companies on safety and health issues and best practice; the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, where dozens of fashion retailers are working together to improve safety and health in textile factories following the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013; and the Business Alliance Against Malaria— a coalition of companies working together to promote innovations for a malaria-free world.

Businesses should regularly measure their safety and health performance to identify improvement areas. Most businesses regularly collect information on “lagging” safety and health indicators, including:

• Accidents and injuries
• Spills, fires, explosions or safety incidents
• Lost revenue/cost of any such safety incidents
• Deaths
• Lost person-days or recovery time from incidents
• Medical care
• Sick leave requested
• Loss of earning compensation

In addition to monitoring lagging safety and health indicators, businesses are also encouraged to collect information on “leading” safety and health indicators, which are proactive, preventive and predictive measures that provide information about the effective performance of safety and health activities. Examples of leading OSH indicators include:

• Number of workers who attend a monthly safety and health meeting;
• Number of workers asked for feedback on good safety and health goals;
• Number of times each month that top management initiates discussion of a safety and health topic;
• Average score on survey questions related to workers’ perception of management’s safety and health commitment; and
• Number of safety-related line items in budget and percentage of these fully funded each year.

Responsibility for data collection should be clearly allocated to relevant roles within the company and reported with a set frequency (for instance once a month).

Additional monitoring activities could include announced and unannounced audits to check for signs of poor safety and health provision, such as locked doors, unclean work environments, unsafe machinery or operations, or lack of PPE. Such monitoring or audits can be undertaken internally by the company or a third-party contracted by the company. Common supplier audit frameworks that span most industries and include safety and health indicators include SMETA audits and SA8000 accredited audits. Businesses should look for the most appropriate audit type to monitor OSH performance in operations and supply chains, with each industry having different safety and health criteria that should be checked.

Examples of performance tracking on safety and health in supply chains include Inditex, which undertakes numerous OSH audits of suppliers each year. Examples of tracking OSH performance in own operations include Equinox Gold and Total.

Companies are expected to communicate their OSH performance in a formal public report. Many countries have national requirements on safety and health reporting for businesses, but there are several global reporting frameworks and standards that can be used, for example the Global Reporting Initiative’s standard GRI 403: Occupational Health and Safety. The standard provides information on what should be included in disclosures on safety and health, and is applicable to businesses in all industries and countries. There are often industry-specific guidance documents available, such as IPIECA resources for the oil and gas industry.

Stand-alone safety and health reports are common in typically dangerous industries such as oil and gas or mining (see Shell’s 2019 Safety report), but safety and health reporting can also be included in sustainability or annual reports (see Nissan’s 2019 report), or in an annual Communication on Progress (CoP) in implementing the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact.

Safety and health reporting is usually done quarterly or annually, if not more regularly, as it is a material operational consideration for all businesses. Some companies have multiple OSH-related communications, such as Shell that regularly update their safety performance data, have specific website sections for safety and health, and include OSH in their annual and sustainability reports. Alternatively, some companies report safety and health performance in their annual reports. For example, Inditex includes data in their Annual Report and their Annual Statement on Non-Financial Information.

Grievance mechanisms can play an important role in helping to identify and remediate safety and health issues in operations and supply chains. Grievance mechanisms are particularly important in occupational safety and health as issues and risks need to be identified as soon as possible to prevent them from escalating, intensifying or affecting more people. Companies should have grievance mechanisms in place for employees to report issues confidentially, as well as immediate ways to report grievances or incidents such as leaking chemicals or unsafe machinery.

It is important that any safety and health concerns are fixed and remediated as quickly as possible. Often, remediating safety and health problems requires physical intervention (for instance fixing broken machinery), and measures should be put in place to keep workers safe until the problem is fixed. Operating processes or safety and health protocols may need to be changed to prevent this kind of incident from happening again. According to ILO Convention on Occupational Safety and Health, No. 155 (Art.13) workers who have removed themselves from imminent, serious danger to their life and health should be protected from undue consequences.

Businesses may also face significant financial payments to harmed individuals, and if there is a major incident, businesses may face fines and legal actions from criminal or civil action. An example is the Brumadhino dam collapse in Brazil, where 270 workers and local community members were killed. Vale, the company that owns the mine, recently paid out US$7 billion in compensation to the victims and their families, and senior management in the company faced murder charges on the basis that the safety and health mechanisms in place to prevent the dam from collapsing and to protect human life in the event of a collapse were not adequate, if indeed in place.

To avoid such situations and address workers’ protection at the outset, more and more companies are recognizing the need for social insurance schemes and the specific role they could play in strengthening relevant national institutions. In the garment sector, international buyers and retailers have recognized that in cases where national social insurance schemes are not yet developed enough to fully protect all workers against work-related injuries, alternative temporary approaches may be required. These could be temporary time-bound solutions, funded with appropriate financing (which can come from voluntary and time-bound contributions). National tripartite organizations, with ILO support, can help international buyers and retailers in identifying the appropriate financing.

This section includes examples of company actions to address occupational safety and health in their operations and supply chains.

Examples of further guidance on occupational safety and health include:

• ILO, The Safeday Report 2020 — In the Face of a Global Pandemic: Ensuring Safety and Health at Work: This report gives specific guidance on how to keep employees and workers safe from COVID-19.
• ILO, How can occupational safety and health be managed?: This guidance provides a range of steps to help businesses manage their occupational safety and health risks.
• ILO, Helpdesk for Business on International Labour Standards: The ILO Helpdesk for Business is a resource for company managers and workers on how to better align business operations with international labour standards, including OSH.
• ILO, Statistics on Health and Safety at Work: Information and statistics on OSH issues from a range of countries.
• ILO, Country Profiles on Occupational Safety and Health: Information on country’s OSH profiles, including national laws, regulations, policies and statistics.
• Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), Delivering a Sustainable Future: This report maps the key elements of OSH management with the SDG targets.
• Fair Labor Association, Protecting Workers During and After the Global Pandemic: This briefing note provides recommendations to how companies can protect workers’ livelihoods as the world responds to COVID-19.
• SME Compass, Standards Compass: This online tool offers guidance on what to pay attention to when selecting sustainability standards or when participating in multi-stakeholder initiatives. It allows comparing standards and initiatives with respect to their contribution to human rights due diligence and their potential limitations.
• SME Compass, Due Diligence Compass: This online tool offers guidance on the overall human rights due diligence process by taking businesses through five key due diligence phases.SME Compass, Downloads: Practical guides and checklists are available for download on the SME compass website to embed due diligence processes, improve supply chain management and make mechanisms more effective.
• ILO Helpdesk for Business, Country Information Hub: This resource can be used to inform human rights due diligence, providing specific country information on different labour rights.
• ILO and United Nations Global Compact, Nine Business Practices for Improving Safety and Health Through Supply Chains and Building a Culture of Prevention and Protection: This report identifies practices that businesses can implement to advance decent work and improve occupational safety and health globally, especially when operating in countries with deficient national safety and health and employment injury protection schemes.