While most organizations have in-house personnel who manage environmental, health, and safety programs on a day-to-day basis, periodic audits by expert third-party auditors have become indispensable for many organizations. Unlike ongoing compliance management activities, compliance audits are evaluations of an organization, facility, or operation to determine its status with respect to applicable, predetermined audit criteria. The scope and audit criteria can be tailored to each organization’s needs, and related assessments or tasks can be integrated into the audit process to its maximize value.
There are several benefits of hiring an EHS team to evaluate environmental or safety compliance for your organization, including the following:
1. Drive environmental protection and workplace safety. EHS regulations are promulgated to provide environmental and safety protection, so improved compliance helps organizations meet the spirit of those requirements and demonstrate proactive leadership. Credible third-party audits can be used to demonstrate effective EHS management to potential customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders.
2. Document compliance status. Properly performed audits offer managers and leadership an accurate understanding of the entity’s compliance position in near real time, and can resolve uncertainties regarding the applicability or requirements of specific regulations.
3. Identify overlooked compliance deficiencies. Third-party auditors offer a “fresh look” at operations and can often reveal compliance deficiencies and emerging challenges overlooked by on-site EHS professionals focused on program implementation and day-to-day operations.
4. Manage risks. Identifying and addressing EHS regulatory compliance deficiencies reduces the risk of environmental releases, accidents, enforcement actions, and negative press.
5. Improve EHS program performance. In addition to identifying compliance deficiencies, audits can improve overall program effectiveness by identifying emerging regulatory challenges, opportunities for pollution prevention or waste minimization, and programmatic root causes.
At Aarcher Consulting, we are compliance auditing experts with the ability to perform comprehensive environmental and safety audits that go beyond the norm. Our teams consistently deliver accurate and reliable audit results and practical corrective action recommendations, which can be integrated with on-the-spot staff training, management recommendations, root cause analysis, EMS evaluation, pollution prevention opportunity identification, and instant reporting.
For more than 20 years, we have performed hundreds of environmental and safety compliance audits for manufacturers, commercial facilities, and federal agencies in every U.S. state. Based on our experience and expertise, Aarcher has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice, and several states to serve as Third-Party Verifier (TPV)/Third-Party Auditor for organizations working to meet the terms of a consent decree (CD), compliance order, voluntary disclosure agreement, or supplemental environmental projects (SEP).