Joint development of occupational safety evaluation indicators and guidelines

Support for small and medium-sized enterprises in building safety management systems

Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency [Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency]
Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency [Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency]

The Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency and the Korean ESG Society will jointly develop ESG (environmental, social and governance) evaluation indicators and guidelines tailored to occupational safety and health. The two organizations will also work together to support small and medium-sized enterprises in building safety and health management systems, with the aim of narrowing the gap in safety standards across companies.

The agency announced Thursday that it will sign a memorandum of understanding with the Korean ESG Society at 3 p.m. at the agency's Seoul Metropolitan Headquarters in Jung-gu, Seoul. The agreement is titled "MOU for Mutual Growth and the Spread of ESG Management in the Occupational Safety and Health Sector."

The MOU is designed to standardize occupational safety and health evaluations — which fall under the social (S) pillar of ESG — and to promote safety-centered management across the public and private sectors.

Under the agreement, the two organizations will pursue four areas of cooperation: developing ESG evaluation indicators and guidelines specific to occupational safety and health, sharing information and infrastructure to raise corporate safety and health standards, developing and distributing content to prevent industrial accidents and embed ESG management practices, and providing mutual-cooperation support to close the gap in safety and health levels.

The agency will contribute data accumulated through its industrial accident prevention projects, while the society will share with the agency the research findings it produces using that data to develop evaluation indicators and guidelines. The two organizations plan to use this collaboration to improve the standardization and precision of occupational safety and health assessments.

The two organizations will also co-host academic conferences and safety culture campaigns. For small and medium-sized enterprises that lack the internal capacity to act on their own, they will provide consulting support to help build occupational safety and health management systems and strengthen on-site accident prevention capabilities.

"Safety-centered ESG management is now an irreversible demand of the times," said Kim Hyun-jung, the agency's chairman. "By combining the agency's specialized data with the society's multidisciplinary research capabilities, we will lay a solid foundation for raising the overall level of safety and health across our society."


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