What is IGSAP?
The Institute of Global Safety Promotion is the English name of the Japanese entity 一般社団法人セーフティグローバル推進機構, whose official name translates as Organization for the Global Promotion of Safety. Its legal form is that of a general association (ippan shadan hojin), a type of registered business under Japanese law. It was established on July 21, 2016.
Its headquarters are in Osaka, in the Yodogawa district, and it maintains an office in Tokyo, in the Minato district. The organization is chaired by Satoshi Inoue, a professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at the Tokyo University of Science, and Masao Mukaidono, professor emeritus at Meiji University, serves as honorary chairman.
Its stated objective is to contribute to improving the safety of workers and the value of businesses by disseminating and promoting a safety concept and technology that the organization itself calls collaborative safety, or Safety 2.0. It is not a public body: it does not issue regulations, perform inspection functions, or have sanctioning powers. Its role is that of a technical promotion association, with companies, universities, and other organizations among its members.
Collaborative safety, Safety 2.0
Safety 2.0 is the entity’s core concept. Its documentation defines it as a safety approach for the era of what is known as Society 5.0, which uses digital technologies, and in particular information and communication technologies, to enable people, machines, and the environment to share information and cooperate, so that the safety of people is ensured autonomously or heteronomously.
The organization attributes the formulation of the concept to its honorary president and states that, following its international dissemination, it is moving towards international standardization. This approach is relevant for collaborative robotics , where safety depends not only on the physical protection of the machine, as in the traditional CE marking approach for machinery , but also on the information that the system shares in real time regarding the position and movement of people and equipment.
Alongside Safety 2.0, the organization promotes the concept of Well-Being Tech, which applies the same technological foundation to improving the well-being of working people.
Structure and lines of activity
IGSAP organizes its activities according to what it calls a holistic approach, structured around four areas: technology, management, people, and rules formation. Each area has its own published work stream, alongside publishing activities and international cooperation.
To develop it, it has sectoral and thematic committees and working groups, including a robotics committee, a construction committee and a manufacturing committee, a study group on Safety 2.0, an international standardization committee for collaborative safety and the committees associated with its qualification figures.
It also organizes regular public activities, such as the International Safety Symposium, the Safety Management Forum and the Mukaidono Safety Award, and publishes books and technical materials on collaborative safety.
Record of conformity and qualifications
The entity manages three of its own schemes, published in its certification systems section.
Safety 2.0 Conformity Assessment Record. System by which an installation or system can be assessed and registered as compliant with the collaborative safety concept.
Robot Safety Assessor Qualification. Qualification scheme for individuals specializing in the safety of robotic systems, one of the few of its kind published by a safety promotion entity.
Safety Officer Qualification. Qualification scheme aimed at people with safety responsibilities in the organization.
It is important to clarify their nature: these are private, voluntary schemes implemented by the organization itself. They do not replace the legal compliance of work equipment or the obligations imposed by each country’s regulations regarding machine safety.
Relationship with Vision Zero
IGSAP participates in the International Social Security Association’s Vision Zero strategy and is one of its promoters in Japan. In May 2022, it organized the second edition of the Vision Zero Summit Japan, and in 2023 it hosted the Well-being Tech International meeting.
In Japan, a registry of Vision Zero declarations is managed: companies that commit to the initiative can register free of charge, and the organization publishes a list of registered declarations with their number, content, and date. It is a voluntary commitment process, without audit or certification of conformity.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
IGSAP joined the institutional advisory committee of the ORP International Foundation in 2023, which described that incorporation as the signing of a collaboration agreement between both institutions.
The relationship is also documented in the Japanese entity’s own records, which include the ORP International Foundation among the international organizations with which it cooperates, along with organizations such as the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the International Social Security Association, and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.
