Compliant

A Sustainable Plant Is Compliant

Compliance with regulatory requirements is the traditional driver and hallmark of an environmentally and socially responsible industrial facility. Pollution control, health and safety regulations, along with local laws, product standards and financial regulations, comprised the adequate and necessary framework for claiming good corporate citizenship.

Now, compliance is only the foundation for loftier – and more profitable – aspirations of sustainability, but it’s more important than ever that the foundation be solid, complete and free of cracks. Nothing will bring down the perception of a facility as responsible and sustainable as quickly or completely as a serious infraction of criminal laws, regulations or standards.

The sustainability manager wants the organization to evidence complete awareness of relevant standards, clear understanding of how they must be observed, strict adherence by all members of the organization, and proof by documentation that facilities, equipment, products and practices are in compliance.

The organization therefore needs to be apprised of changes in regulations, learn how they’re interpreted and implemented, disseminate that information, enforce them and retain evidence of compliance.

This Web site’s role is to report new and newsworthy developments in standards, convey advice and guidance of experts, publicize our readers’ most useful implementation experiences and offer a forum where implementers may share information, as well as ask and answer questions.

By examining compliance issues from a practical sustainability perspective, we can hope to inspire understanding of relative value and usefulness of regulations. Ideally, we can help each other extract the maximum value from compliance.