Corporate Social Review Magazine 1st Quarter 2012 | Page 20

In other words, the intent of the drafters of this landmark legislation was not to eliminate all risk and impose regulation that now often seems to defy common sense. Their intent was to make the world a better place for the people who live in it. To balance the need of a modern society to produce goods and services with the desire of that society for those goods and services to not come at an unnecessarily high price. And let’s be clear; South Africans may not have got to the point where we think that a one day course is needed before we can get the ladder out and change a light-bulb, but we have embraced the core spirit and intent of Health & Safety. We wear our PPE, we do our workshops, we subject staff and visitors alike to increasingly detailed safety briefings, we incentivise senior managers based on their safety records, we post signs, write articles, make videos and do everything (so far as is rea- 18 “It’s very important that corporate social investment goes beyond the often marginalised CSI department, and it’s seen as a major thrust of the company as a whole.”Dr Mamphela Ramphele Chairperson: Gold Fields sonable and practicable) to make the places where we work safer for ourselves, our colleagues, our visitors and our customers. Hurting and killing people is bad for business (unless you’re a professional army, and even then you better be wearing your own PPE when you do it!). Across the world Health & Safety has become increasingly important – a measurable standard that we are happy to hold ourselves to. From legislation designed principally to address heavy industry, CORPORATE SOCIAL REVIEW manufacturing and construction, the Health & Safety directorate has slowly crept into every aspect of our businesses and our lives and - the Jobsworth clan, the snow ball police and the ladder lecturers notwithstanding – our world is better for it. * When we first talked about this article and took a look at the overview for the ISO 26000 legislation, we were immediately struck by a single overwhelming fact. This is an international standard that seeks to have an effect on every single aspect of how we run our businesses. When we talk about Corporate Social Responsibility, we tend to think of team building exercises helping to build low cost housing, big cheques being handed to smiling recipients representing good causes and (as Jonathon Hanks puts it in his article) an organisation’s philanthropic and charitable activities.