The Future of Environmental Data Management is Digital

Despite environmental reporting being a key part of operators environmental compliance, and the significant consequences of not having a complete auditable system in place if something goes wrong, many operators still rely upon paper documents for both recording and storing environmental data.

The use of paper documents for recording and storing data has a number of disadvantages including: it is difficult to ensure the correct data is collected at the right sites, manual data inputs in the field and after are highly error prone, missing data can go unnoticed, it is difficult to search through if a breach occurs, time consuming process to submit the relevant data to the required authorities, and reporting deadlines can be easily missed.  These all make it difficult to provide a full auditable data trail which puts companies at risk of prosecution following an environmental incident or compliance failure.

Digital submission of environmental data is also increasingly becoming the standard for many regulators globally and means previous submissions of data via emails will eventually no longer be accepted, and as rules and regulations become increasingly complex and require more environmental data to be collected organisations will need to have a system in place, not to just submit data electronically but also collect, store and analyse the vast amounts of data required.

This highlights that the future for environmental data management is digital, and having fully digital system in place for the recording, storing, and submission of data will simplify not just the collection and storing of data but also the analysing and onward reporting of required data to the relevant authorities/organisations.  Without a system in place organisations will not be able to meet the environmental requirements set in permits, and ultimately will be at risk from non-compliance and prosecution of an environmental incident occurs and they cannot provide the necessary environmental data.

The solution is MonitorPro by EHS Data.  It’s time to simplify your environmental data management and be ready for the digital future.

Having MonitorPro provides a fully digital system right through from the creation of monitoring schedules, collection of the data in the field,  storing of data in a centralised secure database, analysis of data in this database, and the onward reporting of this data to both internal and external stakeholders.   This streamlines environmental reporting and saves a considerable amount of time which can then be spent on other tasks.

MonitorPro allows different roles to be assigned to users, with different data permissions available, giving you control over who sees and can edit your environmental data. MonitorPro also provides a full audit trial of any changes made and who completed them.

Spreadsheets or paper documents are not secure.  MonitorPro provides a secure centralised database to store all of your data. EHS data takes cyber security seriously, and to demonstrate our commitment to this, we have attained both ISO 27001 Certified, Cyber Essentials Certified, and have the MCERTS accreditation. 

Having ISO 27001 certification is also often a requirement of clients IT departments, and since MonitorPro already has this certification it can greatly streamline the process of gaining approvals to externally host your data with us.

Some operators have site specific compliance levels which  require operators to perform complex calculations to determine whether the environmental data they have recorded falls within their permitted levels.  MonitorPro’s highly configurable calculation engine enables calculations to be completed automatically upon the imported data, examples include dynamic (moving) limits (calculated based on the results of analysis), conditional limits (only applying in certain circumstances), and time based or seasonal limits.

Operators are often required to submit graphs within their reports, MonitorPro has a number of easy to use graphing options available including Polar, line, bar, pie and combo and graphs can be customised with compliance limits.  These graphs can be displayed on a users Dashboard and will be automatically updated to include the most recent data in the database.

Increasingly governments and regulators are requiring organisations to submit data and reports via designated online systems with certain required formats, with many soon removing the option for spreadsheet or paper submissions.  

This means without digitising their processes many organisations will not be able to submit the required information and will invalidate their permits.

MonitorPro provides several options for submitting data to the required agencies, including exports, .pdf formats through MonitorPro’s Dashboard, and API connections.

Agencies may require operators to submit data to online portals in spreadsheet format for incorporation into their own databases.  This requires certain spreadsheet layouts and standardised names and date formats so they match.  If this is not done correctly the import will fail and sites could invalidate their permits. Using MonitorPro an export template can be created to match the agencies requirements and MonitorPro can automatically pull the required data from the operators database and populate the sheet ready for submission.  MonitorPro has a number of these export formats already established, including BMRR in Nevada, USA, EnMods in British Columbia, Canada and MEWS in Ontario, Canada.

In addition to spreadsheet export formats often additional data is required by agencies in a .pdf format, this can include graphs, tables, text, or photographs.  Using MonitorPro’s highly configurable dashboard the required data can be displayed and exported as a .pdf file ready for export.

MonitorPro can provide an API connection for data submission if required.  API connections can also be made to PowerBI and Data Lake.

Contact us today to find out how MonitorPro can ensure you are ready for digital submission changes and how it can streamline your environmental data management and improve productivity through a digital workflow from monitoring schedules to data collection to report submission.