Evolving Roles of ESH Professionals
AIA Environment, Safety and Health professionals are quickly recognizing that their jobs are evolving from end-of-pipe consultants called in to maximize worker safety and manage wastes from manufacturing production lines to frontline product stewards. While the end-of-pipe responsibilities have not diminished, the stewardship requirements are increasing. This leads many ESH professionals to wonder if ESH is the appropriate term to define what they do.
As sustainable development, corporate responsibility, product stewardship and other related terms take hold in both the ESH regulatory, financial and marketing arenas, ESH professionals are being asked to increase the scope of their responsibilities from the traditional focus on manufacturing to an involvement in all aspects of the product life cycle. ESH professionals must increasingly work with product design and materials engineers, contracts and logistics officers and others to identify and characterize the life cycle impacts of the chemical and material inputs to their company’s manufacturing operations and products. Not only are product chemical and materials subject to increased oversight by regulators at all levels, but customers, shareholders, suppliers and communities are increasingly demanding that companies meet sustainability standards set by organizations representing these stakeholders.
At the recent AIA ESH Spring Conference, “ESH in the Global Aerospace Market,” members focused on both the external and internal influences that form their current roles and the ways in which AIA can help support these new requirements. AIA is working with member companies to explore how we can support efforts in the sustainability arena:
- Track chemical management and ESH regulations,
- Inform the aerospace supply chain of new requirements and impacts,
- Survey existing sustainability metrics, and
- Define and develop aerospace industry specific sustainability metrics.
During the conference keynote, Bob Pojasek of Harvard University and Cappaccio Engineering noted that management practices that foster cross-functional collaboration are key to establishing effective sustainability programs. In response, the AIA ESH Committee identified the following actions to address these challenges:
- Develop AIA/ESH tools to foster and exchange best practices,
- Develop positions on emerging chemical and material regulatory, customer requirements and policy impacts to aerospace products,
- Coordinate activities with strategic partners in other AIA Councils, and
- Communicate to upper management the return on investment value of proactively and cross-functionally addressing the many external factors that may impact corporate and aerospace industry sustainability.
Recently, ESH and contracts and engineering experts worked together to respond to a Defense Department proposal to minimize the use of hexavalent chromium in DOD products. While supporting the DOD goal to minimize worker and environmental exposures to the chemical, they identified many concerns with implementing the proposal as written. If not addressed, these concerns could hamper the performance of many aerospace and defense products that are critical to the nation’s security.
The last opportunity for cross-functional collaboration was at the June 24-25 at the DOD/AIA/NASA Workshop on Sustainable Material Management. AIA members worked with their ESH, contracts, logistics and engineering colleagues at DOD and NASA to formulate better solutions for sustainable materials management and ensuring continuity of critical aerospace products. With these actions, the AIA ESH Committee continues its mission supporting conscientious stewardship of the environment, employee health and safety and compliance with all environmental, safety and health regulations, laws and standards.
AIA Source: lisa.goldberg[at]aia-aerospace.org
