Nanotech issues and ideas metaphorically presented in the movie The Fantastic Voyage in 1963 are here. Nano-engineered materials are being incorporated into everyday products, including stain- or bacteria-resistant materials, stronger and lighter tennis rackets, more effective sunscreens, and super precise drug delivery vehicles. The promise of nano materials appears to be wide, impacting many industries and products.
With the development of new nano-level technologies, there are significant EHS considerations. Human and environmental health considerations are not well understood for many of these materials. Cutting-edge research is being conducted, but in the public health field, there is a general consensus that this research is not keeping pace with materials development. Read More
At the NAEM Forum, in a session called “The EHS Manager as a Change Agent,” Don Ritz and Bruce Huber of Barrick Gold argued that EHS professionals can and must view themselves as change agents in organizations, and presented a process similar to the Seven Steps of EHS Integration developed by Redinger EHS.
With issues like global warming, sustainability, small industrial footprint, industrial ecology, and carbon calculus swirling in the press and the minds of many, there is increased attention on how organizations do or don’t incorporate environmental thinking into their business strategy. There have been numerous articles in the Harvard Business Review (most recently a special report titled “Climate Business-Business Climate”) and other business journals. The Wall Street Journal has been sponsoring a prominent conference titled, “ECO:NOMICS, Creating Environmental Capital.”
Welcome to the Redinger EHS blog, Strategic EHS. Here, I provide EHS professionals and senior management with cutting-edge ideas and tools to strengthen the EHS function in your organizations.
In his keynote address at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition (AIHCE) in Minneapolis, economist and futurist Jeremy Rifkin stated that the most basic human instinct is to embody relationship—that is, to be connected with others. He spoke of the “struggle to be,” and argued that it is imperative to reach out to and connect with others at work, in our communities, and in society as a whole, and to do so with science behind us. He talked about the spatial change that occurred with the first Apollo flight to the moon in July of 1969. For many, Rifkin said, it was a defining moment in life—there was a spatial change in how we viewed the world and ourselves, and an expansion of mindset way beyond ourselves.
Many indicators point to a shift in EHS drivers and thinking. Redinger EHS outlines a few below.
Make no mistake about it: We are not in Kansas any more. While the last year has witnessed the decimation of corporate EHS groups in major multinational companies, as well as layoffs and re-assignments, other EHS departments have been unaffected, or in some instances, grown.