Challenge
TRC’s client, a fully regulated utility, operates both natural gas and electric subsidiaries serving over 3.8 million customers in six states. Its natural gas operations include distribution pipelines, transmission pipelines and storage facilities. Its electrical operations include transmission and distribution assets, as well as a generation portfolio with coal-fired, natural gas combined-cycle, hydroelectric, solar and wind assets.
The organization has undergone significant change and continues to evolve by increasing construction projects and growing its overall number of assets. These changes have exposed the utility to a broad and shifting landscape of environmental health and safety (EHS) regulatory requirements, expectations and risks. At the same time, its in-house EHS audit team has been reduced from three auditors to just one.
Given these changes and resource constraints, the organization sought to bolster its EHS audit program and assess overall EHS performance and value.
Solution
TRC helped resolve the client’s challenges with a comprehensive EHS Audit Program assessment. Our practitioners developed key evaluation criteria based upon recognized auditing good practices and the 60+ years of combined experience of our senior auditors. These criteria were used to assess the audit program’s strengths, weaknesses and overall effectiveness and to develop targeted recommendations for improvement.
Our team gathered information through a review of program documentation and interviews with personnel across all organizational levels. Our detailed findings and recommendations were summarized and presented to the client’s EHS team.
Results
Our assessment made recommendations related to:
- Adopting key performance indicators (KPIs) for the audit program to be more closely aligned with the organization’s EHS goals and objectives.
- Using KPIs to guide resource allocation for the audit team.
- Enhancing communication of audit findings across relevant organizational levels.
- Leveraging software tools to track the completion and effectiveness of corrective actions.
- Updating written procedures to align with the new KPIs and recommended practices.
By increasing the impact and efficiency of the audit program, TRC delivered stronger EHS performance across the client organization.