How Does Safety Affect Sustainability? an Empirical Study in the Chemical Industry

The chemical industry is considered indispensable for improving both the economy and the well-being of the population in many countries. However, despite making significant contributions to the global economy and society’s welfare, the chemical industry also has adverse effects on the environment and human health and safety. To minimize its negative impacts and ensure a sustainable future, it is critical to prioritize sustainable production in the chemical industry. It is therefore imperative to comprehend the consequences of safety on sustainable production and the specific mechanisms through which safety can influence sustainable production performance. This paper reports an ongoing study to scrutinize the relationship between safety performance and sustainable production performance. The study comprises a systematic literature review to produce an initial theoretical framework and two phases of data collection to validate the initial theoretical framework. The first phase has been done, providing improvements for the framework, which will be further analyzed in the second phase.