Founded in 1994, the Commission for Occupational Health and Safety and Standardisation (KAN) has the purpose of observing the standardisation process and ensuring that standards makers devote sufficient attention to the needs of occupational safet and health. In 2023, KAN summarised its purpose in a mission statement.
How it works
The OSH interests of various stakeholders – the social partners, the State, the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) and DIN (Members of KAN) – are collectively represented in opinions on current and planned standardization projects. KAN itself is not a standardization body; its resolutions on occupational safety and health and standardization take the form of recommendations which are based on as broad a consensus as possible of all the relevant institutions involved in occupational safety and health.
KAN focuses on
- formulating fundamental OSH positions on important issues of the standardisation process,
- assessing the content of standards to determine whether they meet the OSH requirements from the German point of view and comply with the protection goals specified in European regulations and directives,
- exerting influence on standardisation programmes and mandates (mandates are standardisation requests issued by the European Commission to the private CEN/CENELEC standards bodies),
- checking whether there is a need for standardisation from the point of view of occupational safety and health,
- providing and distributing information on standardisation work for OSH experts.
Implementation
KAN aims its recommendations and opinions
- mainly directly on the standardisation level at DIN and its standards committees if individual national, European or international standardization projects are concerned;
- on the political level at the German Federal Government if fundamental issues of standardisation, the interpretation of regulations and directives and the mandating of standardisation projects are concerned.
- In addition, the national associations represented in KAN contribute their views to the standardisation debate through their European partner organisations.