IOSH magazine Jan/Feb 2021

It’s difficult to remember a time when so many were willing a new year to come so eagerly.

Well, 2021 has finally arrived and I wish you all a heartfelt Happy New Year. The immense challenges that the pandemic brought are still fresh in our minds with new tiers just one example, and the full economic and health impacts are yet to be felt.

Yet there is hope: with a series of promising vaccines and imminent inoculation programmes, a better year is imaginable – achievable, even.

With that in mind, we bring you this issue of IOSH magazine. Our cover feature shines a spotlight on Vision Zero, the global prevention project that aims to eliminate fatalities in the workplace. We’ve come a long way – the UK’s fatality rate is around a fifth of the level it was in the late 1980s – but there is still more work to do.

And this is the motivation behind IOSH’s recent partnership with ISSA to deliver Vision Zero training and offer accreditation for workplace trainers. It gives organisations that sign up (more than 13,000 and counting) an ‘extra layer of validity’, as IOSH’s head of strategic engagement Alan Stevens explains.

Although the reduction of fatalities to zero, as suggested by the project’s title, could be read as unrealistic and unattainable, it’s about having a target and navigating a pathway towards it, about staying positive and focused to achieve successful outcomes.

There is undoubtedly a long road ahead of us. Stay safe and have as positive a start to the year as you can.

Emma Godfrey | Editor, IOSH magazine