What is a Just Culture?

A Just Culture is an organizational culture in which people can report safety problems, errors and near-incidents without automatically looking for someone to blame. The organization uses the information to understand what happened and to improve people, technology, working methods and organization.

That does not mean that every behavior is acceptable. A Just Culture makes it clear in advance where the boundaries lie and assesses behavior carefully, consistently and in context. European aviation rules define this as a culture in which employees are not punished for actions consistent with their training and experience, while gross negligence and intentional violations are not tolerated. See Regulation (EU) 376/2014.