A good environmental compliance software solution needs to be more than intuitive to use and not a one-fits-all
Over the past decade, the need to safeguard the environment has increased—and so has the cost of environmental management penalties. But so has the time, personnel and cost of wholly managing air, water, and waste management at an organization—no matter its size and revenue.
Fortunately, environmental compliance software can provide the technology organizations need to correctly, consistently and accurately manage various aspects of the practice.
The best environmental compliance software suites are designed to help organizations comply with different regulations, enhance environmental health and safety monitoring. Good ECS programs help save costs in terms of avoidable fines, personnel injuries, license suspensions, and reputation staining.
So, what are the factors to consider when choosing the best environmental compliance software for your organization?
4 Top Environmental Compliance Software Criteria
The following are some considerations to keep in mind depending when buying environmental compliance software for a start.
1. Consider Use Cases
This consideration branches out into several other factors.
What do you do?
You’ll need a different environmental compliance program if you are into petroleum storage (no matter the scale) from when you deal in wastewater management. Plain and simple, the type of work you do will determine what kind of regulations you keep up with.
For example:
Do you need to monitor air, water and emissions compliance altogether or just one element?
If you need to keep tabs on all three, you will want an environmental compliance solution that integrates all three parameters and displays them accordingly—since they are all important to your specific use case.
And not only that.
Determining the best environmental compliance software vendor
Your work type will also help you narrow down the best environmental compliance software vendors. You can choose them based on how familiar they are with your industry.
That comprises of their knowledge and experience with your type of clientele, niche regulations, type of data to collect, calculate, and report internally and share with EHS authorities in a standard format.
Determining a suitable use case will also go a long way in evaluating if you really need the compliance software in the first place.
Still, doing the evaluation in advance will help you choose a program that has less bloat that you’d be paying for but will probably never use or need.
2. Consider Your Organization Location
Location. Location. Location.
It does not only apply to customer traffic. It does matter too in environmental compliance.
Here is why it can be tricky:
Generally, rural-based organizations tend to have fewer environmental compliance to do than organizations set out in urban areas. The immediate differentiator here is a more populated area needs stringent environmental health and safety standards to protect the higher number of living things in and around it.
However, the other reason is that urban area regulations tend to overlap. That means an organization can find itself simultaneously dealing with several federal, state, county and town environmental policies that also demand consistent observation.
Manually monitoring and evaluating all the regulations at the same time can be a tall order.
But a custom environmental compliance program can help ensure all of the different regulations are adhered to at the same time.
3. Consider the Data Integration and Standard Tools
The best environmental compliance software out there is not cheap. You want to be able to start reaping benefits from your investment as soon as you can.
To do that, you want the software suite to come equipped with industry-specific tools such as calculation engines, data forms, trends analysis, and reporting tools. One neat tool is having a compliance calendar, where upcoming audits are notified to environmental team members in advance to ensure everything is in order before authorities come over.
4. Compatibility to Future-Proof the Program
Also, you will need the program to come with industry-standard external database and third-party EHS program support—compatibility with standard compliance management system the organization may already have or plan to integrate in future.
If you can get environmental compliance suites that support task management through team collaboration as well as assigning roles according to the existing organogram, even better.
Being a considerable investment, future-proofing an environmental compliance program will help reap maximum ROI before the entire compliance management system needs full replacement.
Conclusion
Getting the best environmental compliance software solution can help automate air, water, emissions and other areas of environmental regulations. Considering the four compliance software criteria discussed here comes with benefits that include saving time, fine money and personnel hours in the mid to long-term.