Awards to recognise noise reduction measures

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has invited nominations for the sixth European Good Practice Awards, which will focus on noise reduction in 2005.

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EASHW) has invited nominations for the sixth European Good Practice Awards.

The 2005 award scheme will recognise companies or organisations that have made outstanding and innovative contributions to the prevention of risks from noise at work, this year's central theme of the Agency-run annual safety and health awareness campaign.

Good practice examples are implemented projects, products or systems to prevent or reduce risks from noise to workers' safety and health.

All entries should show good management, particularly the effective use of risk assessment and the implementation of its findings, and be focused on successful prevention of risks to workers.

Entries are invited from all EU Member States: they can be submitted by individual enterprises (SMEs' participation is especially welcomed) or by intermediary organisations, including chambers of commerce, trade and professional associations and trade unions.

The area covered is quite broad and may range from control and elimination of loud noise from the workplace and sound management methods used to enable effective communication in noisy environments (for example, by the emergency services), to training schemes and awareness-raising education programmes.

The director of the European Agency, Hans-Horst Konkolewsky, says: "Noise at workplace is still too often viewed as a necessary evil, and, as its effects are not instantaneous, it is not considered a priority.

"The truth is noise does have a devastating impact on our health and it affects not only workers at steelworks or construction sites, but also millions of people employed in the service sector, eg in education, entertainment, or call centres.

"It can be a causal factor in accidents, contribute to work-related stress, and may act together with other workplace hazards to cause ill health.

"With the European directive on noise to be implemented early next year, it is high time to take more decisive measures to 'stop that noise'.

"We hope the good practice awards will demonstrate, by example, that work-related noise can be effectively controlled".

This is the sixth year of the awards, which come under the umbrella of the annual European Week for Safety and Health at Work.

The Agency will announce the winners at the campaign's closing event in December 2005 in Bilbao.

The awards will provide the winners with European recognition for their role in improving working conditions in Europe, and the awarded examples will be presented in an Agency booklet to be distributed across Europe.

Further information about the awards will be available online.

The Good Practice Awards are part the European Week for Safety and Health at Work, an annual campaign run by the European Agency to promote a specific occupational health issue each year.

The slogan of European Week 2005 is 'Stop that noise!.

The European Week will be officially launched on 20 April 2005, the International Noise Awareness Day.

The Week itself, which will take place 24 - 28 October 2005, is an information campaign aimed at the workplace; all safety and health institutions and organisations, trade unions, companies, managers, employees and safety representatives are invited to take part and organise their own activities.

These can include special audits and risk assessment activities in the workplace, organising training, distributing information material, launching a new workplace policy, suggestion schemes, encouraging participation of employees and their representatives or linking-up with other organisations, businesses or sub contractors to carry out activities in partnership.

In addition, businesses and occupational safety organisations will be invited to sign an online campaign charter to demonstrate their commitment to more effective noise management.

The campaign's closing event will take place in December 2005 in Bilbao.

Noise is a serious but often neglected work-related risk that can cost sufferers more than their hearing.

Prolonged exposure to loud noise can lead to hearing disabilities, but noise can also cause or be a factor in: causing harm to the ears through exposure to dangerous substances; work-related stress; an increased risk of workplace accidents; and harm to a worker's unborn child.

Noise-induced hearing loss has been recognised by the World Health Organisation as 'the most prevalent, irreversible industrial disease'.

Hearing loss may not only stop a person working to their full potential; it can destroy a person's social life, isolating them from the community around them.

Work-related noise is a growing concern across Europe as it directly affects millions of workers not only in heavy industry but also in growth sectors such as services, education and entertainment.

One-third of Europe's workers are exposed to high levels of noise for more than a quarter of their working time, and almost 40million workers (equivalent to the entire population of Spain) have to raise their voices above normal conversational levels in order to be heard for at least half of their working hours.

To protect workers, the 2003 EU directive, which comes into force in all Member States in February 2006, sets a daily noise exposure limit of 87dB(A) and requires that 'the risks arising from exposure to noise shall be eliminated at their source or reduced to a minimum'.

Back to top