ISO 45001 Certification in Casablanca

ISO 45001:2018 is the international standard for occupational health and safety management, and the only version against which certification is currently granted. Its revision is expected in 2027; the length of the transition is not yet known. The standard is voluntary: it does not replace the Labour Code, it obliges you to identify your obligations, meet them and demonstrate it.

In Casablanca, demand comes from several directions at once. Subsidiaries of international groups apply a group health and safety standard and want a certificate that makes it verifiable on site. Large manufacturers and project owners require evidence of risk control from their maintenance, industrial cleaning or works contractors before letting them onto a site. Finally, group headquarters based in the metropolis look for one system for all their plants, with common rules for subcontractors and uniform accident reporting.

The service is aimed first at manufacturers whose risks are visible: chemicals and pharmaceuticals, with their hazardous products and tanker unloading; plastics and metallurgy, with presses, extruders and welding stations; automotive component makers; packaging and printing, with inks, solvents and reel changes. Casablanca agri-food is concerned too: dairies, beverages, biscuits and confectionery, oil mills, where you find steam, chemical cleaning and slippery floors.

It then targets logistics and distribution platforms, where forklifts, docks and pedestrians cross all day long, and construction companies opening sites throughout the urban area.

Finally, it interests two types of company specific to the metropolis: multi-site groups that want a single system run from their headquarters, and subcontracting SMEs working at large customers' premises that must prove their seriousness to keep their contracts.

Casablanca is Morocco's economic capital and its leading business centre. The port, geared to containers and general cargo, feeds a dense network of warehouses, carriers and distribution platforms. Around it, the industrial zones have expanded in waves: Ain Sebaa and Sidi Bernoussi, among the oldest, Moulay Rachid, then Bouskoura and Lissasfa to the south. Mohammedia extends this fabric to the north, and the Nouaceur area, near Mohammed V airport, hosts aeronautics with Midparc.

You find almost the whole of Moroccan industry there: agri-food, packaging and printing, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, plastics, metallurgy, automotive components, distribution and logistics. The city also concentrates the headquarters of large groups and retail chains, which run from Casablanca sites spread across the country.

This fabric creates particular risk situations. In the older zones, buildings enlarged over the years mix storage, production and vehicle movement. Sites work with many outside companies, for maintenance, cleaning, transport or works, which multiplies coactivity. Truck flows between the port, the plants and the warehouses make docks and yards a sensitive point.

This is why an ISO 45001 system in Casablanca is often judged on its ability to control what is not done by the company's own employees: contractors' interventions, work permits, reception of drivers, coordination between sites of the same group.

The metropolis's customers are not satisfied with a certificate displayed at reception. When pre-selecting a contractor, they ask for a risk assessment specific to the job, the list of training and authorisations of the staff sent on site, method statements for hazardous work and a history of accidents with the actions that followed. Subsidiaries of international groups often add their own rules: energy lockout, hot work permits, work at height, with internal group audits.

When a certificate is requested, the buyer checks that its scope really covers the activities and sites concerned, and that it was issued by a body accredited for ISO 45001 in that sector.

In audits, Casablanca sites often stumble on the same points. Outside companies work without a prevention plan or a recorded safety induction. Hot work permits are signed after the work. Incompatible chemicals are stored side by side, and safety data sheets are not up to date. In warehouses, nothing separates pedestrians from forklifts. Finally, the register of legal requirements is a generic document, identical from one site of the group to another.