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Establishing Global EHS Policies, Management Systems and Methods to Track Conformance
Corporate policies and guidelines for management of EHS are in place for environmental
(1991) and health and safety
(1993) and have been communicated both within the organization and externally. In addition, a management system framework has been developed consistent with existing quality management processes already in place within the organization. However, the consistency and level of detail in terms of specific site expectations were identified as a gap. A goal was set to refine these expectations and to harmonize any differences between environmental and health and safety requirements to make existing program requirements more consistent in level of detail. The benefits of accomplishing this goal were identified as:
- Greater efficiency for site EHS staffs
- Consistent global performance measures
- Joint EHS audits at some sites to reduce audit program expenses.
In 1998 this goal was accomplished by the publication of a joint EHS Policy Manual containing elements of a joint EHS management system and 40 specific policies with minimum requirements. Although these requirements had been in place previously and disseminated via various documents, this was the first time to combine all EHS requirements in one document. We were also successful in finding synergy among some programs that had previously been viewed as being either health and safety or environmental (e.g., Emergency Response). Examples of some of the 40 requirements are:
- Air Pollution Control
- Confined Space Entry
- Exposure Assessment
- Soil and Groundwater Protection
- Emergency Response.
This harmonization of policies has allowed us to conduct joint audits of environmental and health and safety programs at several locations in 1998 (see Facility Audit Program section). Due to the regulatory complexities in the United Sates, it is anticipated that we will continue to perform separate audits for both environmental and health and safety for the foreseeable future in that country.
The EHS management system is consistent with ISO14001 management system requirements. The goal is to have this comprehensive management system implemented at sites in 1998. The audit teams are utilizing an assessment tool developed by the Global Environmental Management Institute (GEMI) as well as internal protocols and checklists to measure the progress toward this goal.
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