Nine Steps to Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) Excellence

A comprehensive Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) program is very important at most organizations to keep the workers safe and meet environmental permitting and compliance requirements. All facilities whether its pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, or commercial institutions, need to maintain an untarnished track record for its stakeholders. Nonetheless, achieving and maintaining success of the EHS department can be a tricky undertaking. Let’s say a facility makes “widgets.” If the “widgets” are out of specifications, they will be returned; providing feedback on the product quality. Unfortunately, EHS program is not tested often and effectiveness of the program suffers. Sometimes leading to dire consequences.

Following are the steps to create a culture of excellence within the EHS program:

1. Commitment through Policy

• Facilities must have a straight forward, easy to understand, message outlining the EHS policy statement.
• EHS policy must be signed by the highest officer (President, CEO) showing his/her commitment to the EHS program.
• EHS policy should be displayed proudly and referenced often.

2. Know your responsibilities

• Facilities should maintain a document outlining all applicable regulations and the methods of compliance.
• Facilities should maintain a compliance schedule for recordkeeping & reporting requirements. This can be a simple table or an extensive management system.

3. Act on the responsibilities

• Facilities must have all environmental permits, plans, and procedures in place. Permits must be renewed in a timely manner.
• Develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) to maintain compliance

4. Empower the employees

• Assign responsibilities for functional areas and specific tasks. Operators can be empowered to undertake recordkeeping that may be required by the permits.

5. Training is paramount

• Training should be provided to educate on the specifics of the task and as often as needed. We all know that repetition helps with achieving excellence.

6. Create and meet benchmarks consistently

• Facilities must develop benchmarks that, at a minimum, reflect the regulatory requirements. These benchmarks must be met to demonstrate that the facility is meeting its obligations.
• Adopting key performance indicators to measure employee performance can serve as an incentive.

7. Assess the program periodically

• The facility should audit its EHS program on a periodic basis (typically 3-5 years) depending upon the complexity of the regulations and how well it has performed during previous audits. An external (third-party) audit is recommended to reduce self-evaluation bias.

8. Create progressive goals

• Once the facility has completed the first seven steps…only then, a facility can truly begin its journey towards EHS excellence.
• The process of creating goals should be an all-hands-on-deck approach. Goals would be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Also, the leadership must be committed to the goals (see step #1).

9. Meet goals

• Celebrate excellence!

EHS goals are often achievable and are a rewarding experience when the culture of an organization has transformed towards recognizing its importance…for its employees and the environment. If you have any questions on how to implement a winning EHS program and achieve EHS excellence contact Sam Joshi, P.E. at (215) 389-2811.