From a health standpoint, EHS involves creating the development of safe, high-quality, and environmentally friendly processes, working practices and systemic activities that prevent or reduce the risk of harm to people in general, operators, or patients.
Successful HSE programs also include measures to address ergonomics, air quality, and other aspects of workplace safety that could affect the health and well-being of employees and the overall community.
Another researcher transformed it as SHE in 1996, while exploring the "concept of 'human quality' in terms of living standards that must follow later than the health.....[as per the] paradigm of SHEQ, ....raising up the importance of environment to the 'safety of people as a prime consideration'".
It involves eight fundamental features which ensure plant and product safety, occupational health and environmental protection, but which also try to demonstrate by image-building campaigns that the chemical industry acts in a responsible manner.
Since the 1990s, general approaches to EHS management that may fit any type of organisation have appeared in international standards such as: The Valdez Principles,[8] that have been formulated to guide and evaluate corporate conduct towards the environment.