What is environmental compliance software and what can organizations do with it?
To get to the bottom of that question, the first thing one would have to do is get a background check of what environmental compliance is all about.
Environmental compliance is one part of EHS management—environmental, health and safety management.
Concerned with ensuring environmental protection against degradation, environmental compliance software is a relatively new technology helping organizations to implement EHS management in line with the regulations set by their environmental, health and safety regulatory agencies.
Such agencies include the Institute of Safety and Health Management, the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and the US Organization of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
There are also international bodies made up of industry professionals that have over time formulated guidelines that act as environmental management standards that organizations can implement in their own operations.
Such include ISO, OHSAS 18001, and CSA Z1000.
What does Environmental Compliance Software Work?
A regulatory body such as the HSE will conduct regular environmental impact audits on organizations. The aim is to ensure organizations implement the laid down rules and regulations for ensuring firms do not degrade the environs they are in; sustainable business activities.
Degradation here can happen in several forms such as:
- Air emissions
- Water pollution
- Waste dumping
- Noise pollution
Environmental compliance software helps organizations to create systematic approaches to environmental concerns.
The best environmental compliance software solutions will integrate several modules such as:
- Waste management: Helps organizations monitor the collection, transportation, disposal, recycling, and more waste management practices and ensure they are all sustainable and comply with the local, national and international regulations.
- Program management: Helps organizations plan, schedule, execute and follow up on environmental management agendas. Those can include environmental management training, reporting and risk mitigation meetings as well.
Importantly, top environmental compliance software will send you and your team alerts whenever new environmental regulations are introduced.
Some advanced EC software solutions even offer templates and integrate new regulatory changes into the organization’s environmental compliance system.
But most programs will help an organization to collect environmental impact data, record it, compute it according to industry reporting techniques, as well as log environmental activities for future analysis or sharing with a regulatory agency.
Organizations can then use the data they capture to benchmark their performances against regulations and international best practices including occupational health and industrial hygiene.
Employees are Also Concerned
It is not just environmental protection agencies that follow up on what impact a company is having on its environment and the general public.
New research shows even employees do. In fact, as many as 50% of employees do care about a company’s energy and water conservation efforts.
They also care about its access to recycling and whether the company they work for takes environmental conservation seriously, according to the same study.
There you have it.
Are you considering using environmental compliance software in the near future? Mind sharing the environmental management goals you have in mind in the comments section below?
