Introduction
In today’s world, businesses face increased pressure to operate in a way that holds them accountable for their environmental impact whether that impact is intentional or not. Given that your business could be held responsible for liabilities it causes whether or not it knows that it is doing is why it is so important to periodically conduct an environmental risk assessment.
What is an Environmental Risk Assessment?
An Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is a systematic evaluation of environmental hazards that could influence a business. This could include analyzing pollution risks, waste management practices, hazardous material use risk, and more depending on the business and the activities it performs.
The benefits of conducting an Environmental Risk Assessment are much more than just regulatory compliance. An up-to-date risk assessment can help a business analyze and ensure they have enough insurance and liability coverage. Additionally, reputation is everything when it comes to business. Even something accidental could permanently damage a company’s reputation significantly dampening growth. Understanding and being prepared for the risks your business will face can help to mitigate the potentially severe consequences your business could face if an incident were to occur.
Steps of an Environmental Risk Assessment
Environmental Risk Assessments are best conducted by a professional, but there are a few general steps that are taken. The first being to identify all environmental hazards. When doing this, it is incredibly important to analyze internal factors such as your staff, the activities your business conducts, and more. But also, external factors that may be out of your control such as weather, local regulations, etc. The second step is to analyze the risks that were identified and to assess the probability and potential severity of these hazards. After identifying these risks and assessing them, it is key to implement strategies to mitigate situations that could cause these risks to turn into reality. This could involve tactics such as employee training, updating operational practices, and many other things. After doing all of these steps, it will be important to continue to monitor, review, and adapt to changes that could cause risk to your business in the future.
Conclusion
Conducting an environmental risk assessment is a great tool to help protect your business from a wide variety of different risks. At Highlands Environmental Solutions, Inc. we are committed to helping businesses while simultaneously making the world a better place. To learn more about how we can help your business conduct an environmental risk assessment click the link below or reach out to info@hesnc.com.
