In 2011 the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) celebrated 100 years of service to the environmental, health and safety profession. Certainly, many aspect of the EHS practice has evolved demanding that practitioners quickly adapt to professional needs. Today's EHS practitioners face increase pressure of demonstrating higher levels of competence at all levels of the professional practice. The knowledge fundamentals demand skill levels in business continuity, hazard analysis techniques, risk management, law and industry standards.
According to data provided in NIST Special Publication 806, Standards Activities of Organizations in the United States (1996 Edition; edited by Robert B. Toth), there are more than 93,000 standards produced and nearly 700 organizations that cited standards development as an area of activity. Of these, the federal government is the largest single creator and user of standards (more than 44,000 of them); the private sector in America collectively has about 49,000 standards.
Many of the standards in circulation today claim to address safety in one form or another. Whether it's in the area of product safety or workplace safety it can easily become a discouraging task for EHS practitioners to adopt consensus standards in the workplace. More alarming is that while there are about 49,000 private sector standards throughout the US today, few EHS practitioners are part of the standard development process. EHS practitioners are expected to know how to interpret, implement and comply with applicable standards that impact their industry. The lack of participation of EHS practitioners in the standard development process puts the practice and constituents represented at a serious disadvantage.
This paper will explore how practitioner in the construction industry can engage the standard development process with the purpose of crafting out the future of the EHS practice. The paper will focus on the ANSI/ASSE 10 Standards with an overview of the ANSI process.
