Auditing is a difficult subject—the term rarely conjures pleasant thoughts, and it’s often a dreaded event for the auditee. For the EHS department, it is a complex endeavor, one that EHS professionals often don’t feel they fully have a handle on as they’re presented with issues of program validity and reliability. For internal audit programs in large companies, scheduling can be a nightmare, with auditors swamped by primary-non-audit duties. While EHS departments do complete their audits and generate reports for the C-Suite, Board of Directors, and External Third Parties, the EHS audit programs I’ve observed often miss the mark.
Some of the recent EHS audit program challenges I’ve observed include: (1) integrating EHS management system audits with existing compliance audits; (2) developing procedures to close the gap between EHS program/system upgrades and the audit tools measuring them; (3) training auditors how to audit the EHS management system; (4) identifying leading indicators that can shorten the audit process or be used in site/plant self-assessment activities. Read More
Many EHS professionals are familiar with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), due to its widely known management systems, ISO 9001 and 14001. Over the past five years, ISO has begun to extend its services more explicitly into the area of risk management—its first two management systems (9001 and 14001) are essentially risk management tools.