Don’t get caught out with environmental legislation. A full site audit will identify potential risks and provide recommendations to prevent a pollution incident that could land you in hot water.
An audit will check your site is compliant with regulations and following best practices to prevent environmental pollution. If a pollution incident should occur, the authorities will be looking for evidence that you’ve done everything possible to prevent it from happening.
Our full site audits will not only highlight areas for improvement but will also equip you with a list of recommendations that are fully costed.
We’ll empower you with knowledge of what assets are at risk, how much they are at risk and what can be done to protect them. Such assets include your business, the people who work in it, the environment and those who live in it.
We do this in a way that supports compliance with any existing accreditation such as ISAS 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System) and offer advice and support on how to improve compliance with relevant environmental and health and safety legislation.
We often find people start to take the measures they should have taken after a spillage incident has occurred, rather than before. Fines which are issued in England by the Environment Agency for polluting waterways and groundwater also have no limit. Not to mention the health and safety risks involved in a spillage incident.
We sometimes hear people saying things like “we cannot afford for that to happen…” But rarely do we hear “happen again”. Theoretically, no company can afford an unlimited fine and often those that receive them go out of business. Can your business afford not to take spill controls seriously?
It’s not just unlimited fines that can be a consequence of little to no spill mitigation, worst case scenario people can get hurt if they don’t know what they’re doing, and criminal charges can be brought against you.
Some organisations use planning tools like SWOT analysis to determine strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats to their business. A site audit can improve all these factors, such as reducing the risk of financial and operational threats posed by spillages. Going from having poor spill controls in place to having exemplary ones can turn a weakness to a strength and generate opportunities such as marketing to your customers the measures you are taking to protect the environment.
The main reason to have a full site audit is environmental risk management and, by extension health, safety and compliance. Everything is fine, until it isn’t. The report provided to you after the audit will give you the knowledge of what the risks are on your site, what the impact of those risks could be, and what can be done to mitigate those risks.
Having a full site audit futureproofs your business by reducing the risk of financial and operational threats posed by spillages. Putting controls in place can turn weaknesses into strengths and improve your green credentials which are becoming increasingly important for business development.
Worst case, a significant loss could occur with little to no spill mitigation and potentially people could get hurt if they don’t know what they are doing, resulting in fines and a potential criminal record.
We’ll start work on your audit before our site visit as we’ll gather data in preparation. The length of the site visit itself will depend on the size your site, if there is more than one and if they are near to each other. As a rough guide, if we can walk around your site in a day, we won’t need to spend any more time than that with you. We’ll ask you some questions about the scale of your site(s) to ensure we quote you accurately.
The full site audit will be undertaken by an engineer or environmental consultant. Our team has decades of experience in spill response and management. Some of us have worked for the EA, consultancies and in multiple relevant industries so we have a real depth of relevant experience to draw upon having been on both (or all!) sides of the fence.
Someone will yes. It should be someone who knows the site (good, bad and ugly), has some experience of any relevant processes, storage and infrastructure such as drainage and can get us from A to B. We politely ask that this isn’t offloaded onto the poor, brand-new intern!
We’ll review your site’s setting and any available data to identify environmental risks and recommend mitigation strategies. During a site visit, an engineer will assess operations, safety, and storage practices to uncover potential hazards and compliance issues. Following the visit, you’ll receive a report within 5 working days, detailing any non-compliance or risks found, along with costed solutions and recommendations for improvement.
Prior to visiting your site, we’ll review your site’s setting, its environmental sensitivities, and any existing site data you may have. We’ll put your site under a microscope to determine what poses a risk, how it poses a risk, what could be impacted if something went wrong, and make recommendations on how to reduce the risk of this occurring.
If you have any data or plans that you can provide us with, such as data from boreholes or groundwater wells, site drainage plans, site maps of what is stored where, etc., this would be very helpful. We’ll discuss this with you prior to the audit and explain how to send us any documentation.
One of our engineers will visit your site on a mutually agreed date to understand your operations and site setting. We’ll be looking for spill and associated health and safety risks. We ask about the physical site and its layout and have standardised set of criteria we consider. But as health and safety culture, operations, people and processes on sites are all so different we also need to understand your site, the mindset of those who work there and its processes relatively quickly. It’s important that we keep an open mind and ask relevant questions. This is where our experience comes into play.
We usually have limited time so steer conversations towards the operations and practices which are likely to result in an incident. We usually get a feel for sites within the first few hours and when we dig a bit deeper into some subjects it can reveal important weaknesses onsite that could have led to risks which would have remained hidden until an incident occurred.
Whilst on site, we’ll check the storage of pollutants. We’ll be looking for non-compliance with environmental regulations and guidelines, including the Pollution and Control Act 1999, OFTEC and building regulations, and what controls can be installed to make storage safer. What we check for will depend on your site and the risks that are present.
Once the audit has been completed, you’ll receive a report highlighting areas of non-compliance, poor practice, or defective/inadequate controls with recommendations of fully costed solutions. Usually, you should expect to receive the report electronically in 5 working days, however it can be slightly longer for more complex sites. Let us know if you need a physical copy or need your report sooner.
The aim of the report is to get you up to speed with any areas of non-compliance and outline our recommendations for improvement. We can discuss those findings with you in greater detail, if you wish.
Stewart has over 30 years experience as an environmental regulator and consultant.
Operating at an international level, Stewart is a board member of the UK & Eire Spill Association and is the current Chairman of the International Spill Accreditation Scheme which sets and monitors standards within the spill response industry.
With over 30 years of training and spillcare experience, our team are dedicated to ensuring your team are not only compliant, but feel safe no matter what occurs on site.
As we manufacture a wide range of spillcare solutions, our trainers and experts have a deep understanding of how to effectively use the products correctly and can pass this knowledge on to your team.
Alongside your site audit, we can help protect your business by ensuring incident preparedness, including:
Please fill out this form and one of our expert team will be in touch with you to discuss your needs in greater detail and provide a no-obligation quotation.
