Risk Mitigation Through Effective Environmental Data Management

The implications of an environmental compliance breach or environmental disaster for a company are immense, through extensive financial penalties, loss of permits, site closures, and significant damage to a company’s reputation.  Despite this, many companies still rely upon spreadsheets or self-built databases to manage key environmental data that is needed to prove compliance, provide action plans, and ensure a company can operate without financial and environmental implications.

Rather than relying on spreadsheets to avoid environmental non-compliance and the associated implications companies should instead implement a dedicated environmental data management system for managing their environmental data.

By implementing an environmental data management system like MonitorPro a company can help to avoid environmental incidents and reduce its non-compliance risk through of number of key areas that cannot be attained with the use of spreadsheets:

Using multiple spreadsheets with different users means data can easily be duplicated or lost.  MonitorPro removes the need for multiple spreadsheets for different data inputs and places them all into one centralised system that all required users can easily access. This increases the control of the data and reduces the risk of accidental deletion or changes. Recovery options are limited when files are scattered around company servers and individual user’s machines. Control over spreadsheets is usually either non-existent or controlled by user generated passwords on individual files.

Using spreadsheets makes data validation difficult, as human input errors or accidental data deletion can easily occur.  When using MonitorPro data is validated to ensure that incorrect data is not entered into the database.  MP-Field and MP-Web provides the user with dropdown menus and date pickers when inputting data, and automatically highlights any data that is unusual or above a compliance limit ensuring only correct data enters the system.  This also removes the need for field notebooks which would have to be transcribed at a later date and can result in manual data input errors.

Having a reliable and validated background data for a site means that site-specific compliance and regulatory limits can be set, and the site’s impact against baseline conditions at the site prior to operations can be clearly identified and monitored. This in turn means a site can easily identify its scope of responsibility in case of any breaches of compliance and can be clearly reported to the required stakeholders.

MonitorPro enables users to automate several different actions that would have to be completed manually using spreadsheets. These include the generation of reports or exports, and the creation of reminder tasks based on permit requirements, along with any subsequent escalation to relevant contacts. Task completion can also be tracked and be linked back to a site’s legal obligations. This significantly reduces the amount of time that a user needs to complete these tasks, increasing productivity and providing more time for users to complete other data analysis. This automation also enables the quick resolution of issues, with email alerts notifying users immediately when there are compliance or import issues to resolve.

Unlike spreadsheets, MonitorPro provides role-based access permissions, password protection, and databases and datasets which can be allocated per user or user group. MonitorPro also records histories of data edits (audit trails), meaning any mistakes can be easily identified and corrected.  In addition to this, EHS Data takes cyber security seriously and as a result is Cyber Essentials Certified and has the ISO 27001 certification.

Late reports can cause non-compliance and result in site closures or fines.  If a company is relying upon spreadsheets to manage data from a variety of different sources including field data, lab data, and historical data, the transfer of data between different spreadsheets and often different employees via email to form a single report can be very time consuming. Data can get misplaced, changed accidently, or missed completely and cause delays in report completion.   MonitorPro consolidates all your data into one centralised location that can be easily accessed by relevant users.

MonitorPro provides a complete and integrated data management system, from raw real-time monitoring data all the way through to the management of regulatory obligations and company policies.  This means companies can centralise obligations, permits and policies, and link them to their related conditions and requirements.  As a result, clear, consistent and validated reporting to regulators and other stakeholders is ensured, reducing the risk of prosecution whilst increasing productivity.

Having an environmental database management system like MonitorPro can clearly help a company ensure its environmental compliance and significantly improve its efficiency in doing this. As a result, any environmental impacts that result from the site’s operations can be identified immediately and any resolutions implemented quickly, potentially avoiding any further impacts. If a serious environmental impact does occur a company can provide proof of actions through its previous environmental performance.