The Intersection of Safety and Sustainability

This presentation will explore the psychologies of sustainability and safety and will demonstrate how differing narratives are often describing the same action. A deeper understanding of semantics will lead audience members to see these fields as two sides of a single coin. The goal of this session is to help bridge the gap between safety and sustainability professionals and foster dialogue between these two groups. Both can learn and benefit from one another to strengthen their individual programs. This talk is an exploration between the two “languages” of these fields and aims to help audience members learn to decode and better understand one another. It will cover how the framing of narratives drives perceptions and attitudes, and how this can benefit all of us in our daily pursuits. This presentation will help EH&S professionals understand they are already sustainability champions and will help sustainability professionals better understand both the regulatory considerations of research spaces, as well as the ‘language’ of safety professionals. This talk will provide several case studies of functional and dysfunction interactions between EH&S and sustainability groups with the goal of gaining a clearer understanding of the psychologies, languages, and narratives driving each group’s point of view.