In corporate environmental, social, and safety management, regulatory compliance is crucial in ensuring organizations operate responsibly and sustainably. However, complying with legal requirements can be a difficult task.
Here we will explore the most common compliance challenges companies face and detail how to manage and overcome them effectively.
What are legal requirements, and why are they needed?
Legal requirements are the laws and regulations established by government agencies and competent authorities to regulate companies' environmental, social, and safety activities. These requirements are necessary to protect the environment, public health, and social welfare. Compliance is essential to avoid legal sanctions, reputational damage, and financial risks.
Where do the legal requirements come from?
Regulatory requirements may come from different issuing bodies, depending on the country and region. These bodies may include government agencies, ministries, regulatory commissions, and international organizations, which issue laws, decrees, regulations, and directives establishing the standards and obligations companies must comply with.
For example, ISO standards such as 14001 for environmental management requirements and 45001 for occupational health and safety demand companies to identify, update and control their applicable legal requirements.
How to effectively manage legal requirements?
Efficient administration of these requirements is crucial to ensure environmental and social management compliance. In this regard, the M-Risk software provides an effective tool to address the challenges associated with compliance and drive continuous improvement. Among its features are:
- Identification and monitoring of regulatory requirements: The complexity of legislation and regulations can make it challenging to identify and track regulatory requirements relevant to the organization. M-Risk has a regulatory base that is updated monthly and on which users can define its applicability for each operation, sector, and company facility. In this way, requirement matrices are prepared by management, and updates on relevant regulatory changes are sent periodically, allowing companies to keep abreast of updates and take the necessary measures to comply with new regulations.
- Internal coordination and communication: Compliance is not the sole responsibility of one department but requires the collaborative participation of multiple teams within an organization. Efficient coordination and communication among these actors are essential to ensure proper compliance. M-Risk offers internal collaboration and coordination tools, facilitating communication between the different teams involved in regulatory compliance. Tasks can be assigned, relevant information and documents can be shared, and the progress of compliance actions can be tracked, all in one place.
- Compliance action management and tracking: The management and documentation of the activities necessary to comply with legal and regulatory requirements must be orderly. M-Risk simplifies this process by facilitating the management and tracking of compliance activities. The software allows you to set and assign tasks, define deadlines and priorities, and track progress in real-time. In addition, it provides alerts and notifications to remind verification of compliance obligations.
- Reporting and audit readiness: Accurate and comprehensive reporting is critical to demonstrating regulatory compliance in environmental and social management. M-Risk enables centralized collection and storage of compliance-relevant data, facilitating the generation of detailed reports. In addition, the software simplifies the conduct of internal and external audits by providing an overview of compliance actions and evidence documentation and records required for audits. With the M-Risk software, it is possible to know the actual compliance status by operation, sector, and even facility at all times.
Simplifying compliance in environmental and social management
As we have seen, compliance activities in environmental and social management are a constant challenge for organizations because new regulations and changes to regulatory bodies occur periodically, requiring analysis to determine applicability to the company's operations. However, the M-Risk software provides a comprehensive platform to manage legal compliance efficiently and effectively, overcoming the hurdles characteristic of the activity.
By leveraging M-Risk's functionality and tools, it is possible to instantly convert information for informed and assertive decision-making on issues as relevant as compliance management. This enables organizations to operate responsibly and sustainably, improving compliance with environmental and social regulations and standards in an ever-changing environment.
With M-Risk, compliance is no longer an overwhelming burden but an opportunity to demonstrate excellence in environmental and social management.
