Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Conscientious Environmental Practices

Today the application of sustainable practices to businesses is not only a necessity for the global environment, but it is also essential to support a company’s bottom line. With the upsurge in state and Federal sustainable reporting initiatives, environmental responsibility is not only expected, but the need for environmental management systems (EMS) to ensure ongoing compliance and environmental performance improvement has become an imperative cost of doing business. This includes overall practices, procedures, and resources for developing and implementing – along with reviewing and maintaining – a company’s environmental policy.
 
“It is no longer acceptable for organizations to be negligent in environmental compliance management. When our organization first saw the capabilities of ProComplianceWare, we knew that we could leverage this powerful new solution to respond to our clients’ growing requirements to manage, report and optimize their environmental performance,” says Vice President Joe Campisi, EHS Services, EBI Consulting. “In addition to being easy to use, the solution is the first environmental compliance management system that is truly affordable and will reduce the risk of compliance penalties and fines for forward-thinking businesses.”
 
This month, ProComplianceWare has partnered with EBI Consulting to deliver its easy-to-use, cost-effective Web-based environmental management system, to improve environmental performance for its clients, including many Fortune 500 companies. EBI Consulting provides environmental risk and compliance management, due diligence, energy efficiency, and engineering services to many Fortune 500 companies seeking to improve operations, lower costs, manage risk and exceed stakeholder expectations.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Staffing and Compliance Performance

For most industrial facilities, staying on top of environmental monitoring and reporting obligations is a daunting task.  Whether it is filing EPCRA Tier II or Form R reports, maintaining compliance with the RCRA hazardous waste regulations, implementing the provisions of a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan or a Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure plan, the routine inspection, sampling, training and record keeping obligations most often falls on facility personnel as a secondary job responsibility. Only in the largest facilities are these tasks handled by personnel whose only job is environmental compliance.

As a secondary job responsibility, routine compliance obligations are often overlooked or put aside because that person’s primary job responsibility is making money for the company. In today’s lean economy it has become an increasingly common problem.

This issue is often compounded when an employee leaves the company and no one realizes the environmental compliance component of that person’s job needs to be reassigned. Even short-term vacations can lead to missed compliance dates. The employee’s primary job responsibilities are covered to keep production going, but no one was reassigned the environmental compliance tasks.

The solution is a comprehensive environmental management system that provides for the seamless monitoring all of a facility’s environmental obligations. Because forgetting to file compliance documents is not an excuse regulators will find acceptable.


Monday, October 21, 2013

Protection Begins With Effective Stormwater Management


How to handle stormwater is always a major challenge for many industries.  Let’s take the case of marinas. In fact, many who safeguard surface water quality consider marinas to be “the perfect storm” for creating stormwater runoff problems and making existing problems worse.

It’s not surprising, since marinas generally include most, if not all, of the following:

·     Oil and gasoline concentrated in small areas.
·     Locations directly on the water, so any spills begin dispersing into the water system immediately.
·     Added impervious surfaces—parking lots, docks, storage facilities, convenience stores.
·     Areas for engine repair and hull and deck refinishing, with potential spills of oil, antifreeze, paint, varnishes, solvents, cleaners with phosphates and ammonia, metal shavings, sawdust, and sandings.
·     Pressure-washing sites that contain dislodged paint and metal chips and organic debris.
·     Sewage, bilgewater, and trash transported in by, and requiring removal from, boats.
·     Boat owners who bring dogs ashore and don’t clean up after them.
·     Mostly transient customers, who may not be as motivated to practice good environmental stewardship as they would be at home.
“We’re constantly approached by marinas faced with the overwhelming task of managing stormwater compliance issues, “ said Edward (Ted) Sailer, President of ProComplianceWare of Madison, Conn., a popular customizable web-based environmental management system which organizes and maintains all compliance requirements for any type of industry. “Stormwater lends itself to a host of regulations, which is why marinas need a system in place in order to not just comply, but to avoid hefty fines for non-compliance.”

There are benefits to effectively managing stormwater issues for marinas beyond the usual compliance and environmental factors.

Boat owners who care about clean marinas and the environment tend to choose these marinas even over less expensive ones. So there’s the financial gain for marinas doing “the right thing” -- because not all do.

As well, marinas effectively recycling and reusing materials can generate income by reducing disposal fees and decreasing the need to buy new materials. Sailer notes grants are available to install pumpout facilities -- another financial benefit potentially. And clean marina owners avoid or reduce future liability and potential cleanup costs. Their insurance companies may also offer incentives and discounts on premiums.

Many of the more compliant marinas across the nation pride themselves on offering first-class service to boaters, even meeting every arrival and helping with the boat’s mooring lines. Services such as a laundry, grocery store, pumpout, fuel dock, restaurant, light maintenance and repair shop, and even concierge service, only serve to enhance the overall image for a marina that “get’s it,” according to Sailer.

These particular marinas also are known to post signs for boaters with the number to call for staff to pick up all hazardous waste, including antifreeze, paint, oil, filters, paint thinner, bilge water, batteries, gasoline, and oily rags. Again, due diligence, and one that makes a terrific impression with customers.

Another helpful approach is having a public education program in place, with signs, brochures, and perhaps even an environmental guidebook -- all to impress upon customers the importance of keeping the environment and water clean.

Many other great programs are in place in the top marinas nationwide, but this just gives a glimpse at what’s involved with protecting the marina environmentally -- where it all starts.


While our discussion has focused on marinas, most of issues discussed relate directly to many facilities that are required to manage stormwater runoff.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

4 Tips To Effective Green Marketing Environmental Compliance



Putting a premium on “green marketing” is obviously quite important when it comes to environmental compliance issues, but be careful to not make overblown claims, which can damage your reputation.

“Green marketing is a necessity, but it comes with certain challenges when it comes to things like permit requirements, records maintenance and obligations related to storage or disposal, to name a few examples,” said Edward(Ted) Sailer, President of ProComplianceWare, a popular customizable web-based environmental management system which organizes and maintains all compliance requirements for any type of industry.

Thus, here are four tips to help companies make sure their green messaging campaigns never cross into overstatement and inaccuracy:

1 – Make Sure Your Green Claims Are Accurate

There are few regulations on what a company can or cannot say about its green approach to business. Yet there are many ways to make claims that can get a company into trouble.

Inaccurate claims can bring enforcement actions from the Federal Trade Commission and some states

As well, goals that are too broadly stated can leave a company open to stakeholder criticisms for not being achievable, creating false expectations for the public or diluting the company’s brand. And if you're a public company, there may even be SEC concerns.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Top 10 Hazardous Waste Compliance Issues

A recent Tufts University study revealed these top ten hazardous waste compliance issues:

  1. Waste label not properly filled out (on both sides, complete information).
  2. Weekly inspection of the satellite accumulation or main/central accumulation area NOT being performed.
  3. Full container remaining in a satellite accumulation area for more than 3 days.
  4. More than one container per waste stream (type of waste).
  5. No impervious base (secondary container requirement). All waste containers must be stored in a compatible secondary container in order to contain spills.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

How To Achieve A Perfect Environmental Compliance Record

There’s no single means to achieving the best environmental compliance possible, but here are some common themes employed by those company's with outstanding compliance records:

  • An iron-clad environmental management system that  keeps your environmental compliance on track.
  • Data and calculations are achieved electronically, thus making them less susceptible to error.  A good environmental compliance program (web-based or software) is highly advisable.