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.
This process shifts the EHS mindset toward one that is generative and based in vision and alignment, as opposed to a mindset that is reactive and based in compliance. Some of the change agent characteristics that Ritz and Huber identified were: persistence, courage, passion, commitment, ability to leverage, and integrity. Read More
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.