Five Pillars for a culture of prevention in business and society - Strategies on Safety and Health at Work

During the Second Strategy Conference in Dresden, representatives from governments, European and international organisations, multinational companies, associations and the scientific community confirmed the five pillars of the safety and health culture and identified new approaches towards improved processes and structures to the benefit of a preventive culture in industry and society.

In recent years, many national governments and international organisations have started a variety of strategies on safety and health and their implementation. The experts of the First Strategy Conference, however, underlined that there was a lack of coordination between individual strategic approaches.

The objective of the Second Conference on 3 and 4 February 2011 in the DGUV Academy in Dresden was to develop a master plan for the improvement of processes and structures to foster a preventive culture at different levels: social politics, businesses and enterprises as well as society. 110 experts from 34 countries took part in the conference. Participants came from 17 EU member states and Albania and from the US, Australia, Brazil, South Korea and Singapore as well as the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

The Conference was organized by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) in cooperation with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Social Security Association (ISSA), the European Agency for Safety and Health and Work (EUOSHA), the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH), the International Occupational Hygiene Association (IOHA) and the International Association of Labour Inspection (IALI).

The participants to the conference confirmed the five pillars as a common orientation tool in the implementation of the various occupational health and safety strategies at different levels and as another contribution to a more holistic culture of prevention in the future:

(1) Reducing work accidents and occupational diseases (Vision Zero)
(2) Raising awareness, developing competencies and capacity building
(3) Cooperation between public health and OSH
(4) Health and safety as an integral part of lifestyle
(5) Integrating prevention into the social security system

Vision Zero as pillar no. 1 was confirmed to be the basic approach that prepares the ground (the strategy) and forms the roof (the objective) for a culture of prevention. The pillar that was considered to be most relevant by the participants was pillar no. 2 Awareness Raising.

The highlight of the first day was the signing of the Dresden Statement to support the 2008 Seoul Declaration on Safety and Health at Work.

The second day focused on the effectiveness of strategies and new approaches that are to support the integration of health and safety into society as a whole.

The European Commission reported on the mid-term review of the EU-Community Strategy on Health and Safety at Work 2007-2012. In addition, the exciting question how to evaluate 2nd Strategy Conference Dresden "Five Pillars - Strategies on Safety and Health at Work” the effectiveness of strategies at company level was discussed from different perspectives. All participants agreed that occupational health and safety strategies had to be transposed from the meta level and be specifically adjusted to the characteristics of companies.

In addition to the Five Pillars, the conference reached the conclusion that a way ahead in mainstreaming occupational safety and health into other fields of politics such as health and education or the media requires its own implementation strategy; this specific strategy must accept and cater for the logics governing the other political fields.

The conference proceedings are available as a CD.

Programme of the event

Download Programme in English (760 kB) (PDF, 754 kB, non-accessible)

Download Programme RU (906 kB) (PDF, 235 kB, non-accessible)