I work for a national waste management company and we’re currently working towards the ISO45001 accreditation.  A suggestion has been made that we may want to look into the British Safety Council’s Five Star Occupational Health & Safety Audit as an alternative standard for our health & safety performance, but I wanted to find out how the two different systems compare.

My initial opinion would be that the ISO45001 seems to be a more universally accepted accreditation and would be more creditable to potential customers and stakeholders than the British Safety Council alternative.  Would this be the general consensus amongst others in this forum?

Hi - until recently I was a 5 Star Auditor for BSC so I can give you all the gen on it.  I would say that it isn't a replacement for ISO 45001 (we used to do combined audits that looked at the 5 Star and ISO)  the 5 Star system is an audit and not a standard so it doesn't do the job of the standard but it is very searching and in some ways more so than the standard itself.  I would go so far as to say it is the best audit tool on the market (I've worked for and audited using a number of big name companies and audit systems).  For more information I think it would be better for us to corespond via PM.  

PS - I stopped auditing because I got a job within walking distance of home otherwise I would still be auditing!

Hsquared14

I agree, the BSC 5 Star audit is probably the best audit tool on the market - I scored 5 stars when I had it done, however, more people will ask for ISO 45001 so if the choice is either/or, I would still go for the ISO Cert.  If you can get both then do it because it will sort out your compliance before you build your management system around it.