Arboriculture workplace health and safety, operations and planning aspects are covered in an array of international industry standards.
Standards are written documents, established by consensus among industry representatives and approved by a recognized body, which provides, for common and repeated uses, rules, guidelines or characteristics, for activities or their results, guaranteeing an optimal procedure, process or product/service outcome.
Standards are different from laws, regulations, ordinances and bylaws as they are not legally binding, in the event of non compliance. They are also different from contracts, specifications and work details which tend to be more specific, tailored to the site and scope of the work as requested by the employer/client/contracting authority. Lastly, standards are more general than best management practices. Best management practices (BMP) are interpretations and more in-depth guidelines as they relate to standards. BMPs are developed by industry organizations or individual authors but do not go through the same review process as standards. Nevertheless, some legal and contracting documents as well as BMPs directly reference standards, so it is important to be aware of referenced standards when undertaking contracts or working in communities with regulations in effect. Some entities can make adhering to referenced standards mandatory, with penalties or other punitive measures in place.
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
Recognize different arboriculture standards that exist throughout the world (although not all of them are here)
Understand the distinctions between standards, laws and best management practices
Be able to compare and contrast different aspects of standards relating to tree care
The following standards are intended for educational proposes for this course and its related assignments only. These standards must not be reproduced, distributed or shared for any purpose beyond your personal use in this course. These standards will be available for consultation for 30 days as of October 26th, 2021.
The following resource list is not an exhaustive list of every standard that exists out there. Unfortunately I do not have access to all of them.
Quebec Provincial Workplace Health and Safety Commission - CNESST
- Safe work practices and prevention guide for tree work (French only, with helpful illustrations). In Quebec, we don't have a safety standard but rather health and safety laws, supported by technical guides for more information.