As a result of working in and observing compliance initiatives across the E-Waste industry, Reliant EHS’ co-founders identified an opportunity to better-serve the needs of facilities and their EHS staff, more effectively engaging employees in compliance initiatives, and further reducing the environmental impact of operations.

The e-Waste industry is unique – we see a lot of passion around environmental protection and activism at the highest levels of companies including founders, managers, and EHS staff, however, with EHS Managers spending an estimated 20 hours a week on administrative tasks (Source: West Monroe) it can be challenging to instill that passion throughout the company as it grows and matures.  This isn't restricted only to the E-Waste industry, the administrative burden of compliance spans industries, standards, and regulatory requirements and presents a great opportunity for simplification.  

Companies have an opportunity to enable their EHS Managers to create a purpose-driven culture that furthers the reach of the company’s vision by reducing the administrative burden of compliance and allowing them to focus on empowering business growth, change, and continuous improvement in a way that is accessible and engaging to their workforce.

Sustainability initiatives have made great strides in reducing the impact on the environment, however, when it comes to compliance, there is still an immense amount of unnecessary waste generated due to administrative practices which require maintaining paper records and documentation.   Many companies currently utilize a combination of paper records and/or general business applications which lack the compliance-specific features needed to streamline record-keeping and promote employee engagement resulting in an increased administrative burden. These methods are also prone to errors and omissions since they lack guidance and validation for required information.  It was found that “an estimated 90% of spreadsheets contain significant errors.”  (Source: Ray Panko professor of IT management at the University of Hawaii)

In creating a solution, it was essential for Reliant EHS to look not only at what companies were required to do to comply with industry Standards, but also at how compliance activities were recorded, how documentation was maintained and made available to employees, and what barriers existed to engage the entire workforce in creating a culture focused on environmental, health & safety best practices. 

Reliant EHS was created to make establishing and maintaining a best-in-class compliance program more accessible, easier to maintain, and improve alignment with existing environmentally conscious practices for facilities in the recycling industry.  The resulting solution focuses on building processes that are efficient, simple, engaging, and streamlined.

The top challenges reported by EHS Managers and Program Directors, including establishing and maintaining  records of downstream vendor audits, tracking throughput, waste tracking, internal audits, SDS sheets, monthly monitoring and EHS activities, controlling documents, demonstrating continuous improvement, ensuring accuracy and completeness of records, and more are addressed in Reliant EHS’ offering for the industry which offers support for all regulatory requirements and industry Standards including R2:2013, R2v3, RIOS, e-Stewards, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, and other regulations.