
International safety footwear standards
Is your footwear really safe? If you are responsible for identifying which safety shoes keep your work team protected in different work environments, it is important that you know these international regulations thoroughly and that you know that the best industrial safety boots worldwide meet these standards.
Knowing about these regulations will help you select the correct safety boot depending on the risks in the work area, and really understand what type of protection your equipment needs.
There are 2 main international standards for safety footwear: ASTM F 2413 and EN 20345. They are the world reference standards and the most valuable to guarantee the optimum safety standards for the protection of feet in a work environment.
The types of professional footwear are very wide. Depending on the level of protection, we can talk about two types:
We will explain a little more about each international regulation below:
The “American Society for Testing and Materials” or “American Society for Testing and Materials”, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes regulations and technical certifications of voluntary consensus.
For many this standard was previously known as “ANSI Z41”, however, it was replaced by 2 regulations in 2005, entitled “Standard F2413 for Performance Requirements” and “Standard F2412 for Methods of Foot Protection Test”, whose last updates were made in 2018.
The requirements of this regulation are:
Calzados Sicura complies with the international standard ASTM F2413-18, identified with codes (I), (C), (EH) and (PR).
The current safety standard in Europe is updated in 2011 to make it more stringent, all products must be manufactured, tested and certified under the EN ISO 20345 standard. In the EN ISO 20345 standard there are different safety classes such as S1 or S3, for example. Each shoe is tested in all possible aspects and is awarded an “S” class, which will depend on the different manufacturing and protection characteristics that the shoe grants.
To group the most common requirements of safety footwear, designation codes are created: an “S”, which represents safety footwear, followed by a letter or number depending on the additional requirements it meets. Depending on the specificity of the requirements, that “S” is changing, as we will see below.
If we wanted to see all these aspects separately, you can “build” an encoding for each type of safety feature that the shoe meets:
If the footwear is additionally sought to be slip resistant, there are 3 parameters or requirements for each type:
As you can see, European regulations are much more specific in the particular risks of each environment. This does not mean that one is stricter than another, they simply analyze risks differently.
The classification of Sicura Footwear, in compliance with EN ISO 20345: 2012, corresponds to: SB + P + E + FO + SRB. In the cases of some models, + WRU is added when the shoe or upper part of the shoe is resistant to water penetration and absorption.
It is always necessary to assess the risks of each work activity to ensure worker protection. Therefore, the footwear that best suits the existing working conditions must be selected and considering the possible risks to which your equipment is exposed. In addition to making sure that the footwear we are buying, it really complies with international safety standards.
If you want to know more about all the aspects that we consider in our production process, as well as obtain personalized advice on your particular case, get in touch with us and with pleasure one of our consultants will give you the best options that adapt to your need.
Call us at: +58 212 3811533 / 3811432. Whatsapp Business: +58 424 1979775.
Source: Standard ASTM F2413-18, ASTM F2412 y Standard EN ISO 20345.
We are a Venezuelan company founded in 1992 in Guatire, Venezuela, with the purpose of manufacturing safety, protective and work footwear.
© 2021 | Calzado Sicura