Pulp and paper (P&P) and recycling facilities have many daily record-keeping, inspection, sampling and reporting requirements to comply with the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act federal and state regulations. To enhance overall corporate environmental governance and drive continuous improvement of its environmental compliance programs, P&P and recycling facilities need to proactively manage various compliance tasks specified in their environmental permits and associated plans.
Implementing an enterprise environmental, health and safety (EHS) information management system (IMS) supports applicable environmental programs and optimizes resources by providing a centralized system to manage and track overall environmental compliance activities, as well as applicable occupational health and safety requirements.
Businesses and organizations subject to EHS requirements can recognize the benefits of an EHS IMS including overall corporate governance of standard operating procedures; EHS risk management; enhanced compliance through the identification and management of the EHS roles and responsibilities within the system; proactive monitoring and management of applicable regulation changes; timely tracking of scheduled and completed EHS compliance tasks; and increased visibility into facility and overall corporate EHS compliance management effectiveness.
Solutions
Serving in a programmatic management advisory role, TRC supported one of our P&P clients with the designing, planning and implementation of the Dakota Software Proactivity Suite to ensure required environmental compliance tasks are completed on time. The EHS software system requirements that were implemented include:
- Compliance Calendar
- Environmental Regulation Applicability Assessment Modules
- Permit Tracking
- Task Management
- Deadlines and Escalating Notices to Staff and Management
- Summary Reports and Compliance Tracking
- Regulatory Updates
Results
TRC conducted an EHS system needs assessment that defined and prioritized system requirements and identified and ranked the top EHS software systems to meet the client’s requirements. After EHS software was selected by the client, a project implementation plan was developed that included a pilot phase to solicit and obtain P&P facility feedback on the ease of use of the system, provided documentation and training on the system, and managed the phased rollout of the EHS system software throughout the P&P organization’s operations and facilities.