The 2024 MASE manual: the 5 pillars of the SHE management system

Behind the MASE acronym sits a text: the Manuel d’Amélioration Sécurité Santé Environnement des Entreprises (companies’ safety, health and environment improvement manual), whose current version dates from 2024. It is the document your auditor will open on certification day, and the one the comité de pilotage (steering committee) will have in mind when voting. Here is what it actually contains, pillar by pillar — and how it is scored.

A common manual, short and operational

The manual of the common MASE/France Chimie system is not a standard in the ISO sense: it is a handbook written by the network’s industrial companies — clients and contractors alike — to describe a safety, health and environment management system suited to companies working on industrial sites. The 2024 version succeeds the 2014 version; both are published in French and English, and the 2024 text is freely downloadable from the network’s website.

Its structure holds in five pillars (« axes »), each defined by an objective:

Pillar	Title	Objective
1	Management commitment	Define the organisation of the company’s SHE management
2	Professional skills and qualifications	Give all personnel the knowledge, know-how and behaviours their position requires
3	Work organisation	Control SHE risks during the performance of tasks, works or services
4	Effectiveness of the management system	Assess the effectiveness of the management system
5	Review and continuous improvement	Take stock of the SHE management system and improve it continuously

Together they form a progress loop: management organises, teams build competence, work is prepared and controlled, the system is checked, the review feeds improvement. Let us go through them.

Pillar 1 — Management commitment

Everything starts with the employer. The manual assigns them, for « moral, legal and economic » reasons, the duty to protect the safety, the physical and mental health of their personnel, and the environment. Concretely, pillar 1 expects a formalised SHE policy, objectives and indicators, a steering organisation, an action plan, a documentation system and resources — all built from risk analysis and lessons learned.

A decisive point: the commitments must be presented and explained to all personnel — permanent and temporary — and to subcontractors. A policy posted on the wall but never carried does not pass the audit: it is through their actions that the employer demonstrates commitment. Research backs that insistence: the meta-analysis by Christian, Bradley, Wallace and Burke published in 2009 in the Journal of Applied Psychology shows that safety climate — largely shaped by management — ranks among the best predictors of safety behaviours and outcomes (see the study).

Pillar 2 — Professional skills and qualifications

Pillar 2 covers the whole competence cycle: recruitment, job descriptions, SHE induction for newcomers, mentoring and tutoring, training, authorisations. The employer must ensure that every person — permanent staff and temporary workers alike — has the knowledge, know-how and behaviours their position requires, and must keep the evidence.

For contractors, this is often the most documented pillar at audit: dated and signed safety inductions, skills matrices, tracking of authorisations and mandatory trainings. One point of care: safety trainings must be traceable and of high quality; in France, when they are funded through vocational training funds, your training providers fall under the Qualiopi certification — the requirements of the national quality framework are a good yardstick for choosing them.

Pillar 3 — Work organisation

The trade heart of MASE. Pillar 3 targets risk control « through anticipation and the deployment of human, material and technical means suited » to the tasks: risk analysis of jobs, planning and preparation of interventions, subcontractor management, end-of-job reviews and lessons learned.

This is where the manual’s contractor-specific DNA shows: work at the client’s premises, simultaneous operations, interfaces with the site’s prevention plan. The field audit — carried out on jobs, works or services in progress, with the workers themselves — checks that the preparation described in your documents is the one your teams actually live.

Pillar 4 — Effectiveness of the management system

A system can be complete on paper and ineffective in practice. Pillar 4 requires assessing it through the analysis of hazardous situations, near misses and accidents, and through internal SHE field audits. Reporting sheets, toolbox talks, root-cause analyses: the arrangements of pillars 1 to 3 are tested against facts.

The link between this signal-driven steering and safety performance is solidly documented: the meta-analysis by Clarke published in 2006 in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology confirms the relationship between safety climate and safety performance, stressing that it strengthens when the organisation genuinely acts on what comes up from the field (see the study).

Pillar 5 — Review and continuous improvement

Pillar 5 closes the loop: analysing the previous annual review(s) and the actions taken, taking stock of the system and deciding on improvements. The manual makes it a permanent process, serving personnel safety, working conditions and the environment. At renewal audits, this pillar is what separates systems that progress from systems that merely hold — and the scoring is sensitive to it.

How the manual is scored

Assessment relies on a questionnaire of 267 questions, each scored under one of three schemes:

• binary (B): 0 or the maximum — the arrangement exists or it does not;
• variable (V): from 0 to the maximum — partial implementation is possible;
• doubled variable (VD): from 0 to twice the maximum, only at renewal audits — maturity pays.

Up to 38 questions can be neutralised when they do not apply (single-person company, no subcontracting or temporary workers, below regulatory thresholds…), by a decision of the auditor justified before the steering committee — neutralising a whole chapter is forbidden. Each pillar’s objective also acts as a safety net: beyond the score, the auditor checks that the company meets the intent.

The manual is therefore not a checklist: it is the blueprint of a living system, judged on evidence and in the field, then debated before a joint steering committee that grants certification for one or three years. To place this assessment within the full journey — joining, the 9-to-18-month window, the audit, the presentation — see our guide to obtaining MASE certification in 2026.

Take action

Download the 2024 manual, then assess yourself honestly pillar by pillar: it is the first move of any serious project. For the full picture — status, steps, frequently asked questions and a free ebook — visit our MASE certification page.