Integration of Occupational Health and Safety and Sustainability Principles for Development of Technologies and Process Designs

The need for effective environmental governance has been gaining wider engagement through emphases on adoption of sustainability principles and goals. With growing production, trade and use of a widening variety of chemicals, business, regulatory and research attention continues to focus on the environmental, occupational and public health consequences of chemical processes and exposures. Occupational safety and health (OSH) have not yet been adequately promoted as a constituent of environmental sustainability. There is, nevertheless, a natural synergy between sustainability and OSH efforts. Failure to utilize this convergence in industrial practice could lead to both subpar control of employee / public risks as well as to insufficient sustainability efforts. Thus, operationalization of sustainability principles may be improved if the concurrence between sustainability and OSH goals is acknowledged. The proposed research will aim to explore the following contextual questions: (i) why the integration of OSH and sustainability practices may lead to a better balance between socio-economic development and environmental protection, (ii) how the OSH and sustainability concerns maybe jointly addressed through newer principles of technological innovation and process design.