Demonstrating environmental compliance

Providing a license from the Environment Agency is only the first step in demonstrating compliance, here’s why…

SMAS Worksafe Preferred Supplier status means that a company has not only been assessed for Health & Safety, according to SSIP core criteria; but that they have also submitted information about how they manage areas including quality and environmental.

Our approach, recognising that many businesses are not as familiar with this stuff as they could be, is to work with the individual companies to identify any gaps in their current procedures and work with them to improve on those.

As part of that process, we also aim to provide the organisation considering working with these individual companies (sub-contractors in this context) reassurance that they do meet their legal obligations and can demonstrate they operate appropriately.
That is why we check the information we receive and provide feedback on what we find – so this information can be considered with all the information to hand.

One good example of this is how SMAS Worksafe checks the Environment Agency licenses that are submitted to company profiles.

The Environment Agency issues licenses to businesses to carry out specific activities which have the potential to pollute the environment and they do so based on the company evidencing that they manage those risks appropriately and according to regulatory requirements.
These licenses often have conditions attached to them and so to really understand whether a company is fulfilling their agreement under the license, these need to be understood first.

SMAS Worksafe will check this in advance and assess whether the company is carrying out its obligations under its license or not.

Additional information is also included on the Environment Agency register checked by SMAS Worksafe. This additional information includes monitoring information, details of any past breaches of the terms of the license, as well as any enforcement actions which have been imposed/carried out.

These are all checked and taken into consideration when reviewing a companies license. Having a license to evidence is only one small step in demonstrating compliance and so it’s vital these additional checks are conducted.

For more information or to talk further about environmental management call us on 01752 697 370