Circular ecosystems for the management of occupational safety and health systems

National systems for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) rely on a diverse range of stakeholders. Properly managing these stakeholders represents a fundamental lever for improving the overall effectiveness of the OSH systems. Although OSH requirements are managed in different ways from country to country, there are opportunities for transnational collaboration in policy development and improvement practices by leveraging their common structures. Consequently, this study aims to identify key factors that would enable effective management of the OSH stakeholders’ network in the perspective of establishing in the future an ecosystem to support daily operations and sustainability of OSH processes, with a particular focus on interventions. Given the absence of academic OSH literature with an (eco)system view, this study explored the concept of ecosystems in other fields using a systematic literature review, which focused on circular ecosystems as they were deemed appropriate to this aim. Based on the review, we identified a framework with five key elements that define distinctive features of circular ecosystems, which suit well the OSH field and its stakeholders' network. These elements are Value, Actors, Circular activities and strategies, Data, Materials and Flows, and Governance. These results, if properly exploited, would represent a fundamental lever for the analysis of an effective OSH ecosystem. This study is exploratory, and future research may uncover additional conceptual frameworks, from contexts other than circular ecosystems, that would also be relevant to the OSH field. Overall, this preliminary investigation lays the foundation for further exploration of the OSH ecosystem’s concept that functions across nations, transcending national boundaries.