Sustainable work in Sustainable Development

The expression « sustainable development » appeared thirty years ago. Its meaning was “a development responding to the needs of today’s generations without compromising future generations’ capacities to address theirs”. This definition is now based on the congruence of values found in economic progress, social justice and the preservation of the environment.   This concept also concerns occupational health plans. The goal is to combine social, economic and environmental objectives and elaborate response strategies in regards to employment and social politics in order to face the challenges linked to the world economic crisis and population ageing. There is much to do to allow each person to access to a decent job in good health and security conditions.  The concept of sustainable work fits in the broader concept of “companies’ societal responsibility”. The goal is to overcome the challenges linked to quality of work, safety and health protection, industrial risk assessments and all axes of social protection systems.   Sustainable work involves many development guidelines: research on carcinogenic substances, nano materials…, development of safety and health training tools, going further with occupational risk prevention. The approach to prevention must be intensified in the must exposed sectors: construction and civil engineering, agriculture, home care professions.  It’s time to elaborate sustainable occupational training paths. For instance, ISSA Construction Section Declaration of Brussels (November 2009) mentions workers’ ageing and recognises “the importance” of measures to improve working conditions of construction workers, so they can continue working until normal retirement age without having damaging effects on their health; without stigmatizing ageing workers, the aim would be to create sustainable professional means to protect employees’ health from hiring to retirement.  Management has an essential role in providing security to its teams, in giving work meaning and visibility, in contributing to the prevention of stress at work.