How to stay ahead of risk and keep compliant
Environmental responsibility and compliance have moved from niche concerns or exercises in ticking boxes to a mainstream imperative for all businesses. For those that aren’t doing the work, there are significant consequences, and fines could be the least of your worries. You could find yourself navigating reputational damage, operational delays, costly remediation and community backlash.
Rio Tinto learnt this the hard way after destroying the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge Aboriginal heritage site in Western Australia, resulting in global criticism, investor fallout and executive resignations. And those are just the stories we know about.
Depending on your operations, you may need to meet specific regulations around waste, emissions or other environmental concerns. However, many core environmental compliance best practices apply across all sectors. Here are 10 critical questions to ask your environmental compliance team to stay ahead of risk.
1. What environmental regulations apply to us?
The first step in any compliance checklist is a thorough understanding of the environmental laws and regulations – local, regional and national – that are relevant to your organisation, industry and location. These typically cover land use, water discharge, air emissions and waste impacts. Legislative overhauls are coming thick and fast, so reviewing this information regularly is essential to ensure you remain compliant.
2. Are our permits and consents up to date?
From discharge and waste disposal permits to resource and emission consents, it’s imperative to track what’s in place and what’s due to lapse. A missing or expired consent can lead to penalties and shutdowns – just ask managers of the China Union Iron Ore Mines in Liberia. In 2024, the company was ordered by Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency to entirely suspend operations after it was found operating without effluent discharge licences or relevant environmental permits. While the fines may only run into the thousands, the costs of a shutdown can be catastrophic to an organisation.
The reality is that many organisations only discover the full scope of their compliance obligations during a formal discovery process. We’ve seen that first-hand when onboarding a new client. During our gap analysis, it’s not uncommon for us to uncover sometime up to 20% more consents than the organisation initially believed it had.
3 Are we proactively monitoring and reporting on compliance obligations?
Reactivity is risky anywhere in business, and especially so when it comes to environmental compliance. If you’re proactive in monitoring and reporting on your obligations, you’ll more likely catch issues before they impact your business, reputation or operations. Your team should be regularly – and ideally, automatically – auditing internal and third-party activities, using tools like environmental sensors. This also makes it far simpler to meet any environmental reporting and ESG disclosure obligations.
4. How are we managing and tracking compliance data?
If the answer is “with this spreadsheet”, sound the alarm. Even if your teams are using software but with siloed data, errors, oversights and wasted time are almost unavoidable. It suggests that your operations are reactive, disjointed and primarily focused on meeting minimal regulatory requirements. This puts you at the lowest level of CSVUE’s GRC Maturity Index, which assesses where your company sits across four key stages of organisational development: Ad-hoc, Siloed, Integrated and Embedded.
To advance to higher maturity levels requires improving processes and culture, and onboarding environmental compliance platforms like CSVUE. This gives you better visibility, real-time tracking, increased automation and a more strategic approach to long-term environmental performance.
It’s also worth checking that your compliance software requires proof that each compliance task is complete. Otherwise, you may think you’re all squared away – until an audit makes you look closer.
5. Are contractors meeting our standards?
Your environmental responsibilities extend beyond your immediate team. Your contractors, subcontractors and even suppliers need to meet your compliance standards. Any external contracts must clearly outline your environmental expectations. That’s exactly what H&M didn’t do. This opened it up to public backlash after environmental groups reported on the environmentally ruinous activities of textile dyeing facilities in China and Bangladesh. These H&M suppliers were dumping toxic chemicals into major waterways.
6. Do staff receive ongoing, role-specific environmental compliance training?
Your people need to know when and what they should be doing to keep your organisation compliant. And check – if people are being trained, is it also ongoing and aligned with their roles and responsibilities? Is it being well documented? They should know who’s accountable for environmental compliance across your organisation and where to report issues they spot. The regular training should cover updates on regulations, incident responses, sustainability goals and any role-specific best practices. Well-trained staff are more likely to follow procedures correctly, spot issues early, and respond effectively.
7. Are we getting maximum benefit from data and analytics?
Your environmental data should help you deliver beyond just your regulatory compliance. It can be a gold mine of insight to identify inefficiencies, track performance, set targets, and reduce impact. FMCG giant Nestlé is a real-world example of this. The company has implemented data analytics tools to track energy use and identify areas where it can reduce consumption, in a bid to achieve its goal of zero environmental impact by 2030
8. Could we survive a surprise audit or investigation?
Your processes, documentation and incident history should be continually updated, well-organised, and prepared to stand up to scrutiny. In many sectors, your right to operate relies on public trust. Compliance records don’t just live in filing cabinets – they shape how communities, regulators and investors perceive your business.
It’s imperative to have clear procedures ready for inspection, understand who is responsible for what information, and quickly and easily prepare summaries for stakeholders or ESG disclosures. Specialised environmental compliance platforms like CSVUE streamline the process by centralising all data in one real-time, accessible hub, making transparency and traceability effortless and immediate.
9. What’s the plan for identifying, managing, and resolving risks and breaches?
Your organisation should have a structured, well-documented framework for identifying, addressing, and mitigating risks. This includes conducting regular risk assessments to help identify any potential non-compliance threats early. Do you know what should happen if you discover a breach? This ought to include analysing the root causes, correcting the issue, and reporting it to relevant stakeholders. It’s essential that any lessons are then fed into policies, training and procedures.
10. How are we staying current with environmental best practices?
Environmental standards and sustainability practices evolve quickly, as do regulations and legislation. Keeping up to date with environmental best practices is crucial to staying compliant, driving efficiencies, and maintaining your social license to operate. Your organisation should stay informed through industry forums, professional networks, training and consistent communication with regulatory bodies. The easiest way to do that? Make sure your tech is constantly updated to align with shifts in the industry.
Compliance takes commitment
Environmental compliance isn’t a once-a-year review. It’s a complex, evolving responsibility that demands the right systems, structure and culture. But compliance is just the beginning. Organisations that perform well use their data, teams and systems not just to avoid penalties, but to make smarter decisions, improve outcomes, and earn public trust.
If your current systems aren’t up to the task, industry-leading, purpose-built software like CSVUE can relieve the burden. It monitors complex environmental operational metrics in real-time, feeding into a customised resource consent database. This allows for an automated alerts system and a clear hierarchy of user responsibilities across your organisation so you can predict, prevent, and respond to potential risks in real-time.
Want confidence that your organisation is truly compliant? Book a complimentary CSVUE trial to see how it can help your team stay audit-ready.
