ISO 19650-6: HEALTH AND SAFETY

by | Apr 4, 2025 | BIM

WHAT IS IT?

ISO 19650-6:2025 is the latest addition to the ISO 19650 series, focusing on the collaborative management of health and safety (H&S) information throughout the lifecycle of built assets. This standard, which replaces PAS 1192-6:2018, provides a structured framework for classifying, sharing and delivering H&S information, aiming to enhance safety performance and ensure that relevant data reaches the right stakeholder at the right time.

WHAT DOES IT DO?

ISO19650-6 provides a structured framework to support the collaborative management of risks and hazards related to health, safety and well-being. The same framework can optionally be used to support other risks including risks to the environment and effects on the local community.

Information requirements for health and safety should be specified in the EIRs.

CONTEXT, RISKS, INCIDENTS AND TREATMENTS

The standard says that all risks must be documented and prioritised to identify those requiring further scrutiny to ensure the correct risk treatment is applied. Table 2 provides a risk schema containing 18 properties for documenting the risk.

BS EN ISO19650-6:2025 Table 2 – Health and Safety risk schema.

In the event of a risk not being identified or if the appropriate risk treatment was not applied, an incident may occur. Incidents are standardised using table 3 which contains 18 properties that are similar to the properties for risks.

BS EN ISO19650-6:2025 Table 3 – Incident sub-schema

For each risk and incident, a treatment should be defined. All parties on a project can propose risk treatments but the party responsible for agreeing the treatment can choose to accept them.

The risk treatment also has a standard set of properties listed in table 4.

BS EN ISO19650-6:2025 Table 4 – Risk and incident treatment sub-schema.

Finally, for each risk the associated context should be captured. This may relate to the site, a specific asset or the project/programme. Table 1 contains 12 properties for capturing context.

BS EN ISO19650-6:2025 Table 1 – Context sub-schema.

RISK, INCIDENT AND TREATMENT NAMING

Each risk, incident and treatment must have a unique identifier. Figure 3 provides a standardised naming standard.

BS EN ISO19650-6:2025 Figure 3 – Risk, treatment and incident identifiers.

SHARING RISKS

All identified risks, incidents and treatments must be shared using the CDE. It is the responsibility of each appointed party to share their analysis of the risks at the start of their appointment.

ISO 19650-6 requires that risks are shared using open formats by the use of:

  • Structured tables or databases

Typically this will be a spreadsheet much like a traditional risk-register but with standardised properties to describe the context, risks, incidents and treatments.

  • Geometric, construction and operation sequenced or work planning models.

The properties for health and safety may be added to components in a model, spaces or annotation entities placed in close proximity to the location of the risk.

ISO 19650-6 provides a mapping table from the risk schema to the IFC property set Pset_Risk in Annex D to allow risks to be shared using IFC.

DIFFERENCES TO PAS 1192-6

ISO 19650-6 supersedes BS 1192-6 by introducing several key improvements.

  • Introduce a schema-based approach for classifying and linking H&S risks.
  • Defines structured data models for H&S risk management, ensuring compatibility with IFC and open standards.
  • Covers the full lifecycle, including operations and maintenance.

KEY LEARNING POINTS

BIM professionals need to understand how to integrate ISO 19650-6 principles into their workflows.

The following takeaways are critical:

  • Incorporate structured H&S data into the Common Data Environment (CDE) to ensure that safety considerations are embedded from design through construction to operation.
  • The use of risk sub-schemas to classify hazards and recommendation on linking them to design elements, construction activities, and operational workflows.

The schema (the properties and allowable values) is summarised in Annexes A – D.

  • The structured tables or information models should not just document risks but actively support risk mitigation strategies.