While the world fights climate change with bold initiatives, other environmental issues such as air pollution, water supply and waste disposal come under the spotlight as well. Managing vast amounts of environmental data for air, water and waste can be overwhelming, especially for large businesses in high-emitting industries. This burden often overshadows the true potential of this data to unlock insights for improving efficiency, reducing waste and optimizing operations.
How environmental data can transform your business from compliance to performance
Many companies still rely on error-prone manual data entry via email and local spreadsheets. Here are four reasons why forward-thinking companies in high-emitting industries need a robust environmental accounting program backed up by advanced environmental software:
- Proactive regulatory navigation – Regulations that protect the environment are getting more complicated, especially with global trends pushing for tougher standards. A robust environmental compliance software solution helps companies check whether they need permits and predict when rules might change. This keeps the business running smoothly with a greater ability to plan, budget and resource new obligations. It also makes sure the business follows the rules properly.
- Efficiency and resource management – Using resilient environmental management solutions makes collecting and calculating environmental data simpler, freeing up environment, health and safety (EHS) teams to tackle other priorities. This also makes the data more accurate and reliable, which helps companies make better decisions and use resources effectively.
- Cost reduction and risk mitigation – Environmental accounting helps companies understand how their actions affect the environment, identify where they are wasting resources and catch potential problems early. This not only saves money by reducing fines, but also by cutting down on resource use and avoiding disruptions in operations.
- Future-proofing for competitive advantage – Companies with strong environmental management and reporting can gain a competitive edge by anticipating and aligning with global regulations, demonstrating their commitment to environmental stewardship. This attracts investors, consumers and partners who value sustainability.
By streamlining data collection and analysis and identifying areas for improvement through robust software solutions, EHS teams can make a strategic contribution to broader sustainability goals. Intelligent software solutions are the key to unlocking this potential.
In 2021, Verdantix stated: “The accelerated digitization of EHS processes and the increasing long-term focus on operationalizing ESG and sustainability risk management will shape the EHS software market in the next five years.” Their recently published “Smart Innovators: Environmental Compliance Software” report provides specific guidance for environmental managers, EHS executives and professionals and lists key decision factors for selecting environmental compliance software.
From burden to benefit: Smart software enables high-emitting industries to become more sustainable
Our environmental subject matter experts recommend purpose-built software as a scalable solution. It enables organizations to navigate the regulatory environment while efficiently collecting, aggregating, calculating and reporting data on various elements including air emissions, water usage and waste management.
Let’s go into more detail to discover which software capabilities should be covered.
Data management capabilities
Benefit from robust data management through an advanced calculation engine.
- Combine gas chromatograph outputs with material information and monitored gas flows to calculate emissions.
- Calculate emission values across organizational hierarchies and user-defined categories.
- Aggregate and apportion irregularly collected operations data for use in emission calculations.
- Display the calculation logic to make complex calculations auditable and transparent for subject matter experts, regulators and auditors.
- Validate operations data to avoid errors and missing values.
Permit management capabilities
Increase the visibility and efficiency of your environmental compliance.
- Provide an easy-to-use register of permits including details such as limits, expiration dates and renewal notifications at the site or asset level.
- Determine the applicability of various regulatory sources.
- Set up automated notifications for permit limit exceedances.
- Establish rules to automate the notification of deviations or exceedances.
Air/GHG emissions capabilities
Ensure full transparency of your emissions calculation.
- Display your organization’s calculation logic with an easy-to-understand expression builder.
- Support the standardization of calculation methodologies by equipment type.
- Use reference data library functionality to manage only the emissions factors needed to support your calculations of GHGs, criteria pollutants, hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
- Export your calculation and all data referenced in the calculation to XLSX format.
Hazardous waste capabilities
Manage regulatory coverage, inventory and disposal management.
- Track the complete container history and waste inventory.
- Trace both hazardous and non-hazardous waste generation, shipment, disposal, reuse and recycling activities for every waste stream.
- Generate and print custom waste container labels that meet your EHS and transportation requirements.
- Categorize waste streams in any way needed to support waste metrics reporting.
Water and wastewater compliance capabilities
Improve water and wastewater emissions management.
- Use sampling data to assess compliance with permit limits.
- Track onsite wastewater treatment and disposal records.
- Generate regulatory wastewater discharge reports.
- Benefit from a centralized view of water and wastewater emissions.
Environmental accounting and compliance software helps companies proactively navigate complex environmental regulations. It simplifies data collection, improves its accuracy and helps companies understand the impact of their actions on the environment and identify areas where resources are being wasted.
Unlock the full potential of your environmental initiatives by harnessing the power of your environmental data. Embrace a data-driven journey toward sustainability with a cloud-based software platform. And drive value throughout your organization by minimizing compliance burdens and environmental risks.
Learn how SpheraCloud Environmental Accounting software can help create a transparent and traceable record for your environmental data, reduce compliance and business risk and drive your environmental performance.
Are you ready to move to environmental performance?
Learn more about what SpheraCloud can do for your Environmental Accounting.