Abstract
Current prices of products do not represent the true costs as the cost of damage to people, planet and prosperity stay hidden. Without these externalities, the market price of a product is much lower than their true costs, which results in continued unsustainable production. To reveal the true costs, a
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system is needed which can measure the sustainability of a product with all its’ related externalities. Croes & Vermeulen (2015) proposed the Oiconomy Standard, a new Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology based on prevention costs for all three pillars of sustainability. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) has a large impact both on the pillars ‘people’ and ‘prosperity’ especially for people in developing countries. Injuries and disease have a major impact on the life of the victim and their whole family. For OHS no prevention costs values have been developed yet, which is why this research provides the first method for the quantification of the prevention costs of OHS management for social-LCA, and in particular the OS.
Based on previous literature and the expertise of multiple OHS professionals, an OHS prevention cost model was developed. In the model the costs are split up in different cost categories, which together give the complete overview of the prevention costs for OHS. Two in-depth case studies were conducted to gather data about the OHS management of two leading organisations in this area. The model is used to create an overview of the expenses that come with a high OHS performance. Creating an overview like this has proven difficult as organisations do not collect information this way, all data is hidden in the organisation, if recorded at all. Based on this data collection process a survey was developed in order to gather company data in a simpler manner. The survey was tested with two additional organisations, one of which was able to provide all needed data without additional support. The results show a large organisation in industry will spend ~10% of labour costs on OHS prevention and ~2,4% for a service based organisation. Small organisations were found to have higher expenses, which can be up to three times as high. Statistics from the ILO were used in combination with the data from this study to estimate default values for the remaining sectors. It is shown that this model can be used as data collection method within the SO.
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