VIENNA, 25 November 2021 - The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is pleased to announce the launch of a handbook, Ensuring Industrial Safety and Security, prepared in collaboration with the Federal Environmental, Industrial, and Nuclear Supervision Service of Russia (Rostechnadzor); and BSI (British Standards Institution), as part of the eponymously titled UNIDO project, funded by the Russian Federation.

 

The handbook provides an overview of essential concepts for ensuring safety and security, depicting modern trends in industrial safety management that encompass a broad spectrum of organizational aspects, technological safety, and important implications for cybersecurity in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and related disruptions.

 

“Industrial safety and security is an important but often overlooked aspect for pursuing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Drawing on the collaboration with leading cybersecurity experts from Rostechnadzor and BSI, this publication maintains momentum in building new industrial safety culture. Adopted at local, national, regional and international levels, this paradigm change will be decisive in tackling newly emerging risks, ensuring high productivity and efficiency of enterprises, preventing production disruptions, boosting competitiveness and impacting economies and societies at large”, said Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento, UNIDO's Managing Director of the Directorate of Digitalization, Technology and Agri-Business.

 

As part of an awareness raising campaign and to help spread best practices in industrial safety, in particular, occupational health and safety (OHS) at the local, national, regional and international levels, the first International Conference on Ensuring Industrial Safety (May 2019, Vienna) was a vivid example of an international effort towards achieving industrial safety worldwide. Following the extensive positive feedback to the Conference, and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, UNIDO and Rostechnadzor organized webinars focusing on issues related to a broad variety of industrial safety aspects, particularly those that are relevant to the ongoing transformations induced by the pandemic.

 

“Emerging trends in technology are changing the industrial landscape, so governments, regulators, and business leaders must work together to ensure new technologies are adopted safely with due consideration of working conditions for employees. It was a great experience to work with UNIDO during the webinar series on “Ensuring industrial safety and security”, as well as on the development of this handbook. We hope it will help raise awareness and help provide risk-mitigation measures based on best practices that promote safety for the future of industry", said Irina Sokolova, Head of the International Cooperation Department at Rostechnadzor.

 

“I was honoured to support the “Ensuring Industrial Safety and Security” project and bring BSI’s expertise not only on Standards but also organizational resilience, culture and digital trust. The publication of this handbook is a fitting culmination of this first phase and I’m looking forward to supporting the next phase under the Global Initiative for Future Industrial Safety (GIFIS)”, said Kate Field, Global Head Health, Safety and Well-being, BSI.

 

Drawing on state-of-the-art international expertise provided by 80 leading experts in safety, representatives of Government, safety regulators and safety technology providers, the project saw the development of several foundation-laying documents and initiatives, including the final conference report, as well as theoretical models and studies that were extensively referred to in this publication providing the basis for insights into requirements to ensure a safe working environment.

 

Highlighting the importance of collective action at both national and international levels to ensure a meaningful shift towards effective industrial safety and security practices based on a thorough assessment of potential risks, accidents and hazards, the publication is expected to make a contribution into ushering in a new safety culture worldwide.

 

The publication is available in 6 language-editions, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Russian.

 

For more information, please contact:

Farrukh Alimdjanov, Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO Department of Digitalization, Technology and Innovation

f.alimdganov@unido.org