Since November 2020 Teknos Oy has been certified with the ISO 45001: 2018 Standard for occupational health and safety management systems. The International Standard specifies requirements and good practices for an occupational health and safety management system with the aim to enable organizations to provide safe and healthy workplaces. Teknos Oy in Finland is one of the key producers of paints and coatings in Teknos Group.
The ISO 45001 Standard provides an excellent framework for developing the responsibility of Teknos supply chain from the perspective of occupational health and safety management. Responsible Supply Chain is one of the focus areas of Teknos Group’s Corporate Responsibility Program.
“Certifying health and safety management system is a step forward on our journey towards accident free Teknos and it demonstrates our commitment to improve our health and safety performance. Learnings from Teknos Oy will help us to develop global policies and guidelines to support also our other sites to improve their performance in health and safety”, says Nora Muurikainen, HSEQ Manager of Teknos Group.
Teknos is committed to continuously improving its health and safety performance. Special focus is placed on developing health and safety leadership to ensure that every Teknos employee is committed to and participates in the improvement of the company's performance.
“An external evaluator's view of the level of occupational health and safety activities and its weaknesses gives new, valuable perspectives to our development work. However, our next step is to improve behavioural safety and to ensure that everyone at Teknos shares the same attitude that we are all responsible for safety and that we follow the principle to always stop and think for a moment before we act. Each one of us needs to have the courage to speak up, stop unsafe work and never look the other way”, Jaana Suokas, QEHS System manager at Teknos Oy, comments.
Occupational health and safety management in accordance with ISO 45001 is integrated into Teknos Oy’s certified operating system, which also includes quality management in accordance with ISO 9001 and environmental management in accordance with ISO 14001.
ISO 45001:2018 is the world’s first international standard on occupational health and safety (OH&S) management, which contains agreed good practices from across the world. The goal of implementing the system is to protect the workers by preventing any kind of work-related injuries, illness or loss of life. Additionally, this can lead to better workforce morale and improved products or services.
One of the targets of the Global Sustainable Development Goal 8 is to protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers. Implementing ISO 45001 helps to protect the health and safety of employees, contributing to SDG 8.