Strategic EHS Management

How can you promote continuous improvement in the environmental, health and safety (EHS) management of your operations and activities, and generate active participation among all employees, worldwide?

Not that long ago, environmental, health and safety (EHS) management was seen as little more than a necessary cost of doing business. But as firms increasingly turned their sights to sustainability (both in the environmental and the business sense), effective EHS management has come to mean more than managing risks and potential liabilities, and certainly more than simply a mechanism for assuring full compliance with applicable laws and regulations. For a growing number of companies, effective environmental, health and safety management means actively contributing to the company’s bottom line by identifying cost-saving opportunities as well as helping to maintain, improve and expand market penetration with products that avoid or even solve certain environmental problems.

EHS Management Improvement/System Development

At ENHESA we help our clients identify and understand deficiencies in management approaches contributing to specific environmental or health and safety compliance discrepancies and business risks. This involves developing and improving corporate EHS Compliance Assurance Programs.  This could involve making presentations to the board of directors or senior managers, as well as working directly with corporate and/or facility management to define management procedures to resolve such problems and to integrate these into overall management practices. We also assist clients in developing overall systematic approaches to managing environmental or health and safety-related risks and issues, either at corporate, division or facility level, including as need be product stewardship related issues.

In addition to helping clients develop specific management system elements based on nationally and internationally recognised management standards, we bring a wealth of knowledge and experience based on the application of “best environmental management practices” as developed and used in the full range of industrial sectors represented by our wide range of clients. Most companies can, without undue expense, put in place a standardised environmental management system, such as ISO 14001 or EMAS. While this is usually a good starting point, such systems do not necessarily address all of a company’s particular needs in terms of assuring environmentally sustainable business development. We work closely with our clients to identify and define the nature of actual or potential risks and problems to be managed, to identify their specific system needs, and then help to design or adapt and implement cost effective management solutions. We then work with our clients to guide them through the necessary steps to develop appropriate management solutions to meet their needs.

>> See also the International Standards on Environmental Management ISO 14.000; International Standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems OHSAS 18.000; European Union Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS); Australian Standard AS/NZS 4360:2004 on Risk Management; Australian Standard on Compliance Programs AS 3806:1998; etc. 

Interactive EMS Development Training

ENHESA's consultants have developed and implemented a number of training courses and seminars aimed at improving clients’ knowledge of the benefits of proactive environmental management and to assist in developing basic elements of a systematic and competitive approach to environmental, health and safety management. Such courses and seminars combine theoretical lectures on developing a fully functional EMS with workgroup sessions aimed at developing practical experience in defining environmental problems and management solutions. In addition to training in the application of “best management practices” ENHESA also conducts seminars in currently applicable and upcoming legislation and regulatory requirements of concern to facility operations and which must be factored into management approaches.

Communicating with Stakeholders

The earliest innovations in environmental management generally focused on the identification and resolution of environmental problems before they became public or the subject of regulatory action. Today, however, with the advent of the ISO 14.001 standard and the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, a new emphasis has arisen to inform the public of the environmental performance of the company or organisation. Moreover, major clients are increasingly demanding information relative to the environmental attributes of products or to overall company environmental performance. 

We help our clients to understand the background to such stakeholder concerns and to formulate sound responses. Knowing how to convey a message, especially if it includes bad news, is as important as knowing what to say. We help our clients deliver clear messages to the broad public and other stakeholders, such as clients and government entities that demonstrate a commitment to continuous improvement in environmental performance, both in terms of operations and products. In practical terms, we help our clients to collect and analyse key information and data and write annual environmental reports and brochures aimed at the public and/or clients. In each instance, we help to organise information and to present it in such a way as to respond to the known concerns and questions of the public to whom the information is addressed.

Regulatory Forecasting

ENHESA works on a global basis to advise multinational clients in a variety of sectors, including automotive, electronics and information technology and advanced materials, on emerging environmental policy and legislative issues and trends that will affect their operations and/or products, and ultimately the way they do business around the world. Working with local experts in virtually every corner of the globe, we have access to the senior policymakers and legislators that are shaping tomorrow’s environmental agenda. We help our clients to understand the future opportunities and constraints these new developments can have on their manufacturing base as well as their product development and market strategies.  See also the ENHESA Global ForeCast

Strategic Opportunities Identification and Assessment

Our EHS regulatory trend tracking and forecasting efforts bear fruit when, working with our clients, we can together identify new business opportunities from foreseeable regulatory and market developments that will impact them. We help our clients understand the major environmental trends that will affect them and their customers in order to realise new business opportunities by anticipating and meeting future market needs. Our objective in such exercises is usually to identify and analyse the key “mega-trends” that will impact a given client’s business in a given product or market area, and then work with the client to develop reasonable scenarios of how such issues might play out. Our ultimate goal is to help our clients better position themselves for tomorrows markets and to seize the competitive advantages that environmental concerns give rise to for creative companies. 

To understand these future scenarios, we not only look at current and emerging issues and regulatory and market responses to them, but also to evolving policy responses to as yet not fully defined concerns, as was the case when endocrine disrupting chemicals was still an issue confined to a few university researchers. We then consult the key policymakers and influencers concerned to validate our information and theories, before applying them to particular products or business situations. Today, there is virtually no other group so dedicated to helping our clients track and understand the ramifications of emerging and future legislation on their products worldwide.

Interface with Decision Makers

ENHESA regularly tracks the positions of critical decision-makers and issues influencers, and assists clients in communicating their messages. We advise our clients as to who are the key persons they want to influence and how best to approach their concerns and present the message. Services in this respect can include:

• Identification and profiling of key proponents and protagonists on particular issues or legislative measures, including lawmakers, executive agencies, and influencers such as jurists and other legal experts, journalists and media sources, professional practitioners and their industry associations, and influential non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• Monitoring and reporting on the positions adopted by key persons and organisations on particular issues and initiatives
• Organisation of informal or formal meetings with decision-makers and influencers, including roundtable discussions and information dissemination campaigns ENHESA does not, itself, seek to influence the decisions of policy makers on behalf of our clients.

We do, however, place our clients in a favourable position to convey their messages, while maintaining our neutrality in the face of such efforts. As a result of our approach, some of our consultants are occasionally approached by policy makers, such as members of key European Parliament committees, as recognised experts on issues of critical concern to our clients.  Because of our neutral stance and the value of the information we bring to them, our consultants often enjoy the trust of such policy makers.

Experience

ENHESA’s consultants have played a key role in helping numerous clients appreciate the impacts of evolving policies in the field of environment and health and safety on their existing and planned operations and product markets.

• Development of the first environmental management system based on the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) for a nuclear electric generating facility in Belgium. Conducted initial environmental review and risk assessment and regulatory compliance audit; prepared facility environmental policy statement for public dissemination; guiding internal working groups in development of management system elements and working procedures with a view to EMAS registration by end 1997.
• Design and implementation support of a health and safety management system for field installation and maintenance staff of a multinational semiconductor manufacturing equipment manufacturer throughout Europe and the Middle East. Under our guidance, site management are actually developing their own management approaches, procedures and manuals.
• Design and development, for the Global Environmental Management Initiative, of the ISO 14001 Self-Assessment Checklist for facility managers to benchmark performance against the requirements of the ISO 14001 standard.
• Development of the UNEP Environmental Management System Training Resource Kit, based extensively on ISO 14000 elements and other “best management” practices, and aimed at improving environmental management performance in large and small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries and economies in transition.
• Forecast trends in environmental regulatory developments over the coming decade in 25 countries around the world (western and eastern Europe, North America, Latin America and the Asia/Pacific regions) likely to impact manufacturing operations of world’s largest motor vehicle manufacturer. Helped to establish minimum environmental management standards for worldwide operations.
• Investigated the major environmental trends affecting the market for a specific product group of a specialty chemicals (silicones) manufacturer, to identify new business opportunities for client’s products by expansion into new markets with existing products and by developing new products to meet future customer needs. The results of the study focused on supporting client objectives to identify three new business opportunities, each worth US$ 10 million in revenues.
• Assisted the European Commission in its review of the EU’s Fifth Environmental Action Programme by analysing the Programme’s record of implementation to date and providing recommendations on how the Programme can be strengthened to contribute to the EU’s goal of sustainable development and developed a communication strategy to support the integration of environmental objectives in the policies and actions of public authorities, in economic sectors and for consumers.
• Identification of business risk indicators for evaluation of potential investment targets based on actual or potential environmental liabilities to extend investment analysis model to Western Europe from the United States, for Innovest.

Results

We can highlight with great satisfaction some of the achievements of our clients as a result of our efforts, both jointly and on their behalf: the first nuclear power generating facility to obtain EMAS registration, an advanced materials manufacturer that re-oriented new product R&D away from areas of declining market value and towards areas that will help solve future environmental problems faced by downstream customers; the major automobile manufacturer that will anticipate future environmental standards and take these into account when building new plants and facilities, rather than pay expensive retrofits only months after they come on line, or the consortium of electronics and IT equipment manufacturers that managed to compel the OECD and the European Commission to re-examine the policy conflicts between proposed take-back legislation and actual transfrontier shipment of waste rules, to name but a few.