EHS Management System

What are the key components of an EHS management system?

The scope and maturity of an EHS management system varies by industry, location and company. Some industries and countries are more regulated than others, which dictates more mature and robust EHS management systems. Despite these differences, there are components common to every EHS management system.

• Incident Reporting captures, tracks, investigates and reports on all incidents and near-misses, including injuries and illnesses, spills, property damage, and vehicle incidents.
• Audit Management includes scheduling, tracking, data collection, and reporting for all internal or external audits to simplify and ensure compliance across all company locations and operating jurisdictions.
• Document Control improves document management across the complete lifecycle of your organization’s compliance efforts and activities. It controls access to sensitive files, forms and reports while preventing errors, reducing risk, and improving visibility.
• Training Management makes it easy to plan and track EHS training for a global workforce. Worker education and training is critical to building a robust and resilient health & safety culture while staying on top of diverse and always evolving industry regulations.
• Regulatory Compliance is adhering to key EHS regulations/directives while being able to prove it to the appropriate regulatory entities. This involves understanding the standards and regulations applicable to your industry and operating locations, collecting, analyzing and reporting on all required data while being able to prove compliance through inspections and audits.

What are global standards for EHS management systems?

Globally, there are many regulatory bodies that legislate and enforce standards for workplace environment, health and safety management.

• The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) was passed to prevent employees from being injured, killed or made ill at work. The act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), whose mandate is to establish and enforce workplace health and safety standards while providing education, training and support to employers and employees.
• The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is an independent regulator in Great Britain with the goal of preventing workplace illness, injury and deaths. The HSE establishes standards, guidelines and policies for workplace health and safety while enforcing those mandates through inspection, investigation and mandatory reporting.
• In the European Union, the European Framework Directive (1989/391/EEC) establishes general principles for managing workplace safety and health. This includes the rights and responsibilities of the employer and the employee for risk assessment, documentation, reporting, inspections and audits.
• ISO 45001:2018 is an international standard to establish, implement, maintain and continually improve a companywide EHS management system with the goal of preventing work-related injury, illness and death.
• ISO 14001:2015 is an international standard that organizations can use to establish and certify an effective environmental management system. This standard is applicable to any type, size or location of business to help them to meet and exceed their Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) goals.

What are EHS Management system requirements?

ISO 45001 is the world’s leading standard for occupational health and safety management systems. Its goal is to create a safe and healthy work environment by identifying, mitigating and eliminating workplace risk and the potential for adverse effects on the physical, mental and emotional health of workers.

ISO 45001 includes several main requirements or clauses, including:

• Context of the Organization
• Leadership
• Planning
• Support
• Operation
• Performance Evaluation
• Improvement

Learn more about ISO 45001:2018 Requirements

What are the benefits of an EHS Management system?

An EHS Management system codifies your organization’s Environment, Health & Safety strategy and then streamlines its implementation and management. Some of the benefits from a structured EHS Management system include:

• Preventing workplace incidents, accidents, injuries and illnesses: The main objective of any EHS management system is to keep workers healthy, happy and safe.
• Improved operational efficiency: Defining and employing EHS processes, policies and procedures company-wide delivers improved worker productivity, reduced downtime and lower costs.
• Easier regulatory compliance: An EHS management system makes it easier to understand and comply with the EHS regulations appropriate to the company’s industry and operating jurisdiction(s).
• More educated and engaged workers: An EHS Management system includes robust employee education features that schedule, track and report on worker training to keep workers safer on the job and build a stronger EHS culture.
• Reduced Administration Costs: Structured process, policies and procedures and standard documents are very effective at reducing the time and effort required to manage critical operations and EHS issues.

What is EHS management system software?

EHS software streamlines and automates your EHS management system by collecting, storing and analyzing EHS data from your entire organization in a single, centralized repository. It automatically recognizes and tracks changes in applicable EHS regulations and standards to maintain compliance while making it easy prepare mandatory documentation for audits and inspections. EHS software tracks incidents and illnesses for analysis so you can identify their root cause and create CAPA (Corrective and Preventative Action) plans that prevent reoccurrence.