Five ways to improve EHS compliance management

Managing the risks associated with non-compliance is the goal of an effective EHS compliance management program. In this article, explore five of the most important steps to improving compliance management.

1. Know the regulations

Wherever you operate, there will be specific regulations that you need to comply with. Knowing what those regulations are and having a clear understanding of how to comply with them is the first step to improving EHS compliance management.

Regulations will come from many different global sources, so compiling them into a comprehensive framework that applies in all jurisdictions will make it possible to centralize reporting and to introduce and apply the same corporate standards everywhere. With one source to go to for this content — such as Enhesa’s Compliance Intelligence — teams can more easily know their legal obligations, understand business impacts, document actions taken, and track and maintain compliance.

2. Know your compliance status

Once you know what regulations you’re required to comply with, you then need to determine your current state of compliance. Identifying your current compliance status across jurisdictions also means that you can then identify actions to close any gaps. It’s important to ensure this status is trackable and visible to those in the company who need to know — that can be at any level and within any department. Keeping this information accurate and up-to-date also means improvements can be demonstrated via reporting.

Ensuring this information is centrally available can also help teams responsible for ESG and sustainability leverage existing EHS compliance data for the substantial number of topics that have some overlap.

3. Harmonize your approach

When a business’ global sites and corporate compliance function work together holistically in a cohesive manner, it can significantly reduce the time and effort it takes to gather all the necessary information — as well as mitigate the risk of lost, missed, or incorrect data.

Ensuring compliance status reporting is rolled up to the corporate level requires a harmonizing of requirements, compliance tracking, actions to take to fill gaps, and progress against goals within a single, consistent system that’s standardized and accessible to every global facility. Benchmarking compliance performance both across global sites and at a corporate level provides business leadership and shareholders with the level of transparency they need to make vital strategic decisions and identify opportunities for improvement.

Once in place, this harmonized process is also a huge timesaver, alleviating the inefficiencies of gathering and correlating data from disparate systems and processes. Furthermore, it means having ready access to up-to-the-minute and accurate compliance status across the business, which helps companies take a proactive approach to mitigating the risk of non-compliance.

4. Be proactive

The merits of proactivity versus reactivity are well documented and acknowledged, and that same ethos applies to EHS compliance management. A reactive approach to compliance means fixing issues when they cause a problem, which is complex, stressful, and costly. Conversely, a proactive approach means identifying and resolving issues before they become a problem.

Being proactive involves monitoring worldwide regulations, staying notified of upcoming changes in regulations that concern your business, and planning ahead for new or evolving regulatory standards to minimize the time and human resource impact of these changes on your business.

By creating and maintaining an active, dynamic list of global regulatory requirements — both as they launch and well in advance — businesses can “keep the finger on the pulse” of the changing regulatory landscape so they can gain the luxury of time to prepare for upcoming changes along with the assurance that today’s requirements are met.

5. Deliver information in advance

The sooner your teams know about upcoming new regulations, or changes to existing ones, the sooner they can start preparing for them.

Once you can anticipate emerging and changing regulations in advance of implementation, you can deliver this information in a clear, actionable way to teams in every global jurisdiction and at the corporate level. This means that everyone across the organization can prepare for EHS regulatory changes, understand their impact on the business, and mitigate the risks of non-compliance ahead of time.

Empowering your teams and nurturing existing employees is vital for spearheading a transformation in compliance ahead of time, so you can get more strategic about changes and how the company responds to/prepares for them.

EHS compliance risks will keep changing — so you should too

It’s important for companies to remember that risks can’t be wholly eliminated from any operation, but the measures listed here can help support an effective risk management system. Not only will this approach create a robust compliance program that adheres to regulatory requirements, but it provides suitable insights and a structure to encourage a proactive preparedness for future changes and challenges.

One of the most impactful ways businesses can nurture that proactive approach to EHS compliance is to make the relevant information centrally available, up-to-date, and fully transparent. This helps companies develop and implement action plans to improve compliance and reduce risks consistently. Centralization provides transparency and visibility for leadership, to ensure a company’s global compliance status is always in view for internal and external stakeholders who need it.