Table of Contents
VelocityEHS and STP ComplianceEHS recently teamed up to host a webinar offering EHS professionals with audit program best practices and updates on the most relevant regulatory changes affecting employers in the US and Canada. Below is a summary of key points from the session “Staying Ahead of Compliance: Integrating Trending Requirements into Your EHS Audit Program.”
To watch the full webinar on-demand, click here.
The Value of EHS Audits
In a rapidly changing regulatory landscape, compliance is simultaneously one of the most challenging and essential functions of Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) management. An effective EHS audit program is the primary strategic tool EHS professionals use to plan, track, and verify compliance activities, and so, it is vital for EHS professionals to understand how to build an effective EHS audit program and maintain it as changing requirements impact the business. “Staying Ahead of Compliance: Integrating Trending Requirements into Your EHS Audit Program” explores the essentials of EHS audit programs, the most significant regulatory updates affecting businesses today, and technology resources available to help EHS professionals stay ahead of changing regulations, maintain compliance, and find the time to pursue continuous improvement initiatives.
EHS Audit Program Essentials
An EHS audit program is a systematic framework designed to objectively evaluate an organization’s EHS policies, practices, and operations against a defined set of legal requirements, corporate standards, and/or industry benchmarks. Your EHS audit program should outline the objectives, scope, and criteria for audits, aiming to ensure regulatory compliance, manage risks, and foster continuous improvement in safety and environmental performance. A truly strong EHS audit program should be built around management system standards like ISO 45001, ISO 14001, and/or ISO 19011, all of which lay out what are globally accepted as best practice audit program structure and standards. Whatever model or standard you use to build your own EHS audit program around, it is critical to collaborate with EHS specialists, operations managers, legal teams, external auditors, and all other relevant stakeholders inside and outside of your organization to ensure a consistent, comprehensive, and transparent audit process.
Regular review is another essential part of maintaining your audit program, providing a formal process to identify lessons learned and implement a continuous improvement approach. Finding the right frequency for these reviews depends on your organization’s size, complexity, and the nature of its operations. Annual reviews are strongly recommended, at a minimum, to stay ahead of regulatory changes and address emerging issues. As we all know, however, regulations are published and updated frequently, and an agile audit program is crucial to adapt to last-minute changes.
Another best practice is to build resiliency and redundancy into your EHS audit program. Members of your audit team and other key stakeholders may have limited availability, and others may leave the organization over time. Having a “deep bench” of experience and personnel to support your EHS audit program will come in handy in the long run, as will building flexibilities and contingencies into your audit policies and schedules.
At its core, your EHS audit program is intended to track and verify compliance with applicable regulations and standards, and integrating new and trending regulations into your audit program is critical to compliance. Regulatory changes can significantly impact the scope and execution of audits. Regularly assessing your regulatory applicability should be a top objective of your periodic audit program reviews. Staying informed about regulatory trends and updates can be a massive challenge, so EHS professionals are well-advised to engage with industry associations and leverage government agency resources. The smartest solution is partnering with a regulatory content provider such as STP ComplianceEHS who can help you eliminate both the effort and potential errors and oversights inherent to manual review of regulations to determine which rules and standards cover your organization.
Regulatory Updates
For EHS professionals in the US and Canada, here are the top recent and trending regulatory requirements to keep on your radar as you review your EHS audit program, re-assess your regulatory applicability, and determine what new or updated requirements you need to assure compliance with:
Heat Illness Prevention
Heat illness prevention one of the most talked about occupational health and safety topics these days and it is gaining significant attention from regulators across the US and Canada. OSHA’s National Emphasis Program (NEP) on heat hazards has been in effect since 2022 and continues to be an important enforcement tool for OSHA in protecting workers exposed to heat illness risks. The primary standard the OSHA Heat Illness NEP relies on for enforcement is OSHA’s General Duty Clause, although OSHA is currently pursuing a federal standard for heat illness prevention that proposes requirements for employers to develop comprehensive heat injury and illness prevention plans (HIIPP) and implement corresponding heat hazard prevention policies and controls. Several states have already implemented their own heat illness prevention standards, necessitating compliance with state-specific requirements, and many states are likely to develop their own respective standards in the coming years.
PFAS
The regulation of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), known as “forever chemicals,” is a growing concern due to their persistence in the environment and increasing level of understanding around their significant health risks. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to expand requirements for companies to report PFAS present in their chemical inventories through the EPCRA 313 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), as well as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This includes requirements to report detailed information on PFAS use, production volumes, disposal methods, and potential exposure pathways. To make PFAS reporting requirements even more stringent, EPA has removed de minimis exemptions under the TRI requirements that otherwise allow companies with only very small quantities of reportable substances to avoid reporting requirements for those chemicals. EPA has acknowledged the persistent and bio-accumulative (PBT) nature of PFAS and has required companies to report the presence of reportable PFAS in their facilities in any amount, necessitating meticulous tracking by companies.
Ergonomics
Ergonomics is a crucial for workplace health and safety, yet it is often overlooked due to the relatively sparse legal standards specifically targeted toward workstation design and musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) prevention. While there is no federal standard in the United States, states like California, Minnesota, and New York have specific ergonomics requirements for employers. California’s regulations apply to any workplaces with a recorded repetitive motion injury (RMI) within the past 12 months, and Minnesota and New York have standards on the books that apply to healthcare, warehousing, and meatpacking facilities. In Canada, provinces including British Columbia have updated ergonomics guidelines to clarify definitions and requirements for preventing MSDs, emphasizing the need to address ergonomic risks to reduce workplace injuries and improve employee well-being.
Workplace Violence Prevention
Workplace violence prevention is another hot regulatory topic. States like California have recently extended requirements for workplace violence prevention in the healthcare industry to apply to all workplaces—mandating additional training, policies, recordkeeping requirements and controls across all workplaces. Meanwhile, several other states have implemented standards focused on healthcare workers but, are likely to follow California’s lead in applying workplace violence prevention standards to all industries. In Canada, provinces like British Columbia and Alberta are consolidating workplace violence and harassment prevention plans, while Ontario has expanded its definition of workplace violence to include virtual harassment. These measures aim to create safer work environments by addressing both physical and psychosocial risks.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Fit Requirements
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is the last, and sometimes, the only line of defense between workers and potentially life-threatening hazards. That’s why PPE fit is so essential, but for many workers, improper PPE fit prevents them from receiving the greatest level of hazard protection. In response, US OSHA has updated requirements to ensure PPE fits all workers appropriately, with a particular focus on female workers. Numerous states have quickly followed suit in adopting the revised requirements into their respective OSHA state plans. In Canada, provinces like Ontario and British Columbia are updating regulations to mandate proper PPE fit for all body types, underscoring the importance of accommodating all workers to ensure safety and regulatory compliance.
EHS Audit Tools & Systems
An effective EHS audit program is key to achieving and maintaining regulatory compliance with applicable requirements, new and old. Whether it’s assessing regulatory applicability across multiple locations and jurisdictions, keeping your audit checklists up-to-date and consistent with applicable requirements requires proactive planning, broad stakeholder engagement, and a culture of continuous improvement to manage risks and enhance workplace safety. Staying informed about regulatory trends and having the ability to quickly and accurately integrate new requirements into your EHS audit program is essential for maintaining compliance in an ever-changing regulatory landscape. Leveraging compliance resources like regulatory content updates from providers like STP ComplianceEHS and audit capabilities like VelocityEHS Audit software will give you the tools to stay ahead of requirements and drive stronger outcomes across their operations.
Click Here to Watch the Webinar On-Demand!
VelocityEHS Can Help!
VelocityEHS Audit software, available with the VelocityEHS Accelerate® Platform, centralizes and standardizes your audit processes so you improve the quality of your compliance activities across facilities and programs. You get a powerful system to build, deploy, and maintain an effective EHS audit program across each of your locations, organization wide.
VelocityEHS is also proud to partner with STP ComplianceEHS, the global leaders in regulatory intelligence and analysis to provide powerful audit and inspection tools that help you master EHS regulatory compliance no matter where you operate. Our Audit software allows STP ComplianceEHS clients to automatically generate and deploy audit checklists based on applicable global EHS regulations and instantly sync your audit program with changing regulatory requirements in real-time. With VelocityEHS and STP ComplianceEHS, the days of sifting through complex regulations and standards to determine your requirements and update your audit and inspection programs are over.
Visti https://www.ehs.com to learn more and see first-hand how VelocityEHS and STP ComplianceEHS can help you navigate a complex regulatory landscape with speed and confidence.