Environment, Health and Safety (EH&S) initiatives often take a back seat to other priorities as managers a faced with doing more with less under austere working conditions. A new report from Aberdeen Group offers a roadmap to a more effective EH&S initiative and analyzes the supporting technology that can help with compliance and mitigate risk.

The report recommends the following steps:

• Establish executive leadership for EH&S. The vision of EH&S needs to be developed in collaboration with a company’s upper management, especially those with budgetary authority.

• Establish standardized policies to minimize risk of business interruption due to EH&S events. By establishing responsibilities and steps to take in case of adverse events, you can contain losses and prevent EH&S incidents.

• Implement an Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Strategy. This will help a company develop a unified picture of risk for decision makers and improve the organization’s ability to manage their risks effectively.

• Invest in a Document Management Solution. A centralized, searchable, database can help manage the massive amounts of complex data related to energy, environment, safety and compliance.

• Create a Closed Loop Process to Manage Change. A formalized process should be developed to request, approve and communicate changes across the value chain. This can help prevent incidents, injuries and unscheduled downtime that can happen when someone in the value chain makes a change without understanding the business impact.