Compliance Audits

Do you know where you stand with regards to the regulations that pertain to your operations? Are you in compliance with the major environmental rules and regulations covering your type of operations keeping you from causing environmental damage? Are you in compliance with the health and safety regulations to provide a safe workplace for your employees?

Many companies started in business by knowing how to make a particular product or how to perform a particular service. Knowledge of environmental laws sometimes occurred from trial and error, an expensive way to learn. The same applies to health and safety regulations where an injury can be an expensive way to find out how something should have been done.

Compliance audits will enable you to determine how you are meeting, or not meeting, the regulations. This type of audit will provide a snapshot of your operations on the day of the audit and will identify any areas of major non-compliance. No compliance audit is able to guarantee that you are in compliance due to the variation of interpretations of the regulations. What it can do is lessen your liability and improve you bottom line.

An environmental compliance audit covers a number of areas in the operations:

	Wastes – air emissions, hazardous waste, oily waste, other wastes
	Control plans – SWPPP, SPCC, PIPP
	Required reports – AWR, TRI, Air emissions, etc.
	Chemical storage – flammable, storage tanks, etc.
	Training and communications (CMA uses a 33 page checklist to cover all of these and other items)

A health and safety compliance audit covers a number of areas in the operations.

	Training of personnel
	Personal protective equipment
	Plans – confined space, noise, lockout/tagout,
	Emergency response – first aid, fire safety
	(CMA uses a 13 page checklist to cover all of these and other items)

Companies that have ISO 14001 certification (Environmental Management System) need to have environmental compliance audits to conform to part 4.5.2 of the standard. This is the part that pertains to evaluation of compliance. An environmental compliance audit by a third party provides you with a fresh pair of eyes that will assist in evaluation of your operations.

Companies that have OHSAS 18001 certification (Health and Safety Management System) need to have a health and safety compliance audit to assist in identification of risks in the operation. It also identifies the safety regulations that are pertinent to your operations.

Compliance audits should provide you with the documentation you need to ensure that you take the corrective action that you need. CMA LLC provides an “Action Needed” section at the end of our reports that will summarize the actions needed to come into compliance based on what we observed during the audit. The checklists also cross reference the specific laws that pertain to each item audited so that you can refer easily to what the regulation requires.

Let us put our years of experience in performing these types of audits to work in your operation.

Call us toll-free at 866-243-6001