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During the "FY2025 First Expert Review Meeting on Chemical Substance Management" held on May 19, 2025, Japanese authorities discussed the procedures and schedule for reviewing the substances subject to concentration standards for the current fiscal year.
The substances targeted for review this fiscal year were clarified as follows: First, continuing review substances include 128 substances that have been under review since FY2024 or earlier. In addition, newly reviewed substances, consisting of 149 substances newly selected for examination, were also presented.
Notably, the 149 newly reviewed substances were chosen from a pool of 344 substances that already have occupational exposure limits (OELs) established overseas but do not yet have established measurement and analysis methods domestically. For these newly reviewed substances, the development of measurement methods and the formulation of standards are scheduled to be completed within the current fiscal year.
Background
The "concentration standard" system introduced through an amendment of the Industrial Safety and Health Regulation in May 2022 was fully implemented as a binding requirement in April 2024. Concentration standards are values designed to mitigate health risks to workers by limiting the concentration of specific hazardous substances in workplace environments to certain levels.
Employers handling substances with concentration standards in indoor work environments are obligated to ensure that workers' exposure levels for these substances do not exceed the prescribed values.
The concentration standards are defined with the following two key indicators, depending on the duration of exposure. For certain substances, both indicators may be established, while for others, only one may apply:
8-hour concentration standard: The upper limit of the average exposure concentration over an 8-hour workday.
Short-term concentration standard: The upper limit of the average exposure concentration over a 15-minute period when exposure is presumed to peak during the workday.
Currently, substances subject to concentration standards are being added progressively based on deliberations conducted by expert review meetings.
April 2023: 67 substances were designated.
May 2024: An additional 112 substances were included, bringing the total to 179 substances.
Details about the substances can be found here.
