The National Safety Council Congress & Expo is the world’s largest annual event dedicated to workplace safety. It attracts over 15,000 safety, health and environmental professionals from more than 70 different countries, enabling them to gain insights and information about opportunities to reduce injuries and cut costs. This year’s NSC Congress & Expo was held September 6-12 in San Diego, California. Ansell was proud to participate and connect with safety professionals from around the world to understand their latest challenges and areas of focus.
The key takeaway from this year’s event was the need for innovation. A keynote presentation delivered by Jim Carroll, futurist trends and innovation expert, drove home the importance of innovation. Carroll captivated the audience as he encouraged safety professionals to consider how future advancements in technology will impact safety in the workplace as we know it. Carroll posed an important question: “How are you going to mitigate safety risks for jobs and careers which are not yet in existence?” Carroll’s focus on a future-minded approach to PPE requirements highlighted the need to anticipate workplace dangers before they occur and actively innovate toward eliminating them.
Another hot topic at this year’s NSC Congress & Expo was the annual announcement of OSHA’s top ten most frequently cited workplace safety violations of 2019. OSHA shared this announcement as an opportunity to urge safety managers and the larger safety community to keep these violations top of mind when outfitting workers or innovating new PPE to address these violations and concerns.
Several conversations throughout the week revolved around fentanyl protection for workers in rescue and medical fields. Challenges around the prevention of drug exposure to emergency responders is a growing issue that is directly connected to the larger opioid crisis our society faces today.
Ansell shares NSC’s mission to advocate for safety. At Ansell’s booth, we showcased new products and highlighted our comprehensive, cross-industry portfolio of protective solutions. We also provided a puncture demonstration with the MICROFLEX® 93-850, which significantly reduces risk of harmful exposures, rips and tears with the highest known standard for barrier quality and consistency.
The themes and discussion points at this year’s NSC Congress & Expo reinforced Ansell’s commitment to providing innovative solutions to improve safety performance and productivity. We will continue to provide solutions and support to workers and safety professionals across a wide variety of industries around the globe.