Additionally to existing norms of safety at work following ISO 45001 and the Dutch VCA-certificate (safety, health and environment), EQAsce working groups and committees investigate in how far the standard “Safety Culture Ladder” (SCL) could be transferred to the value-added chains of the agri and food sector. The Safety Culture Ladder with its five levels helps to identify, which stage of development a certain value-added chain of meat, milk, eggs, fruit & vegetables and other foods has concerning topics of health (humans and animals), safety at work and environment protection.
It facilitates giving positive ratings to corporate investments, initiatives, and workflows in the value-added chains. In Germany, there are currently only SCL-certifications on stage 3 for single enterprises and for branches like rail traffic and electricity suppliers. This is about to change: In the Netherlands, electricity suppliers have been certified stages 4 and 5 already. Additionally, the current dramatic developments in the German meat industry lead to an investigation by the EIP.NRW-project GeTie (run by EQAsce) about the question, if the standard that is closely connected to human awareness and acting could create incentives for a different way of self-evaluation.
