Many comments which the Institution submitted to the EC's public consultation are reflected in the guidelines, which will assist companies in complying with the requirements of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive.
Under the directive, certain organisations with more than 500 employees must disclose "relevant, useful information that is necessary to understand their development, performance, position and the impact of their activity".
There are several examples of disclosure in the guidelines which align with IOSH's comments, including:
• Health and safety at work and human capital management
• Health and safety policies and resources
• Improvement targets for reducing occupational accidents or diseases
• Hierarchy of control for hazardous substances
• Supply chain and sub-contracting management
• Operations and suppliers at significant risk of human rights violations
• General and sectoral material-KPIs
IOSH has also welcomed reference to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights on due diligence, which it recommended for inclusion.
Richard Jones, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at IOSH, said: "IOSH believes that organisations, investors and society at large will benefit from greater corporate transparency, which can help drive stronger long-term performance and sustainability.
"Investors and others are increasingly interested in non-financial information to improve their understanding of organisations' performance.
"IOSH fully supports the aim of enhancing consistency and comparability of non-financial disclosures across Europe (and particularly the health and safety content), in order to raise standards and incentivise improved performance."
Richard added that IOSH is working to help ensure transparency on health and safety risk management performance across operations and supply chains.
He said: "We advocate the use of meaningful and comparable data; standardised health and safety reporting metrics; and that significant health and safety risk management data is externally verified and presented in a combined or integrated report.
"IOSH has been championing important health and safety issues as 'material' since 2003 and are keen to work with European institutions and others to improve performance reporting and supply chain management and embed health and safety within the CSR and sustainability agendas."
For more information on IOSH's work in this area, click here.
