Author Archives: Graham Freeman

About Graham Freeman

Graham Freeman is a content writer and editor at Intelex Technologies in Toronto, where he writes on topics relating to quality management. You can follow Graham on LinkedIn by clicking here: www.linkedin.com/in/graham-freeman-aa5a575b/

Why Human Error Isn’t to Blame: Understanding Variability in EHS Systems 

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Scapegoating workers and accepting the limitations of human judgement does nothing to reduce injury and fatality rates or to improve the efficiency of the EHS management system.

When we say that human error was responsible for an incident, it’s tempting to be comforted by the idea that one person’s poor judgement was to blame. If that person was doing something they shouldn’t have been doing, that seems to be a fairly obvious root cause that couldn’t be anticipated and doesn’t reflect the overall integrity of the management system, leadership or workplace. “Humans will always make mistakes,” we might tell ourselves, “and you can’t make a system foolproof when humans are involved.”  

Yet scapegoating workers and accepting the limitations of human judgement does nothing to reduce injury and fatality rates or to improve the efficiency of the EHS management system. People operate within the constraints provided by the culture and management … Read more...

ESG Reporting and EHS Management at Day 2 of the Intelex User Conference 

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Day Two of the Intelex User Conference in Nashville on Nov. 4 continued the discussions about the current state of EHS management, the growing role of ESG reporting and how best to support the frontline worker.

With experts from various industries in every breakout session, the discussions were rich with insights into how Intelex and its partners can continue to foster the innovation customers need to keep workers safe on the job and create a sustainable future for everyone. 

Managing an OSHA Inspection

When an incident happens in the workplace, an OSHA inspection frequently follows. 60 percent of inspections take place in construction, manufacturing, retail and health care, while almost 40 percent of all OSHA inspections are at organizations with fewer than nine employees.  

While your organization and OSHA both have the goal of keeping workers safe and ensuring the continuous improvement of the safety management system, it’s important to … Read more...

Intelex30: How ESG Reporting and EHS Management Systems are Responding to a Changing World 

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Some organizations will face the reality that spreadsheets and manual methods for collecting data will not be able to keep up with the requirements of ESG reporting and EHS management.

The world has changed a lot over the last three years. In many ways, it’s become more unpredictable, with supply chain disruption, economic concerns and geopolitical volatility becoming part of our daily existence. Yet through it all, frontline workers are there to keep the machinery of the global economic engine moving, so keeping them safe while improving the way they work has never been more important.  

With that in mind, the Intelex User Conference returned in Nashville, Tennessee from November 3-4. For two days at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, we met with customers, partners and industry experts to dig into the present and future developments of EHS to see how we can support the needs of frontline workers everywhere. Since … Read more...

The Everyday Work of ESG Reporting

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Many have no idea where to start when it comes to ESG reporting responsibilities. Here are a few ideas to help get you moving in the right direction.

Environment, social and governance (ESG) principles have become a monolithic presence in the strategic thinking of today’s organizations. Consumer demands, investor concerns and mandatory regulatory reporting have taken ESG from the vague public relations exercises of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the rigorous reporting requirements coming into force in many jurisdictions around the world. 

One of the difficult things about monoliths is that it can be tricky to get a handle on them. Their sheer size and complexity can be overwhelming for those who are not used to dealing with them. ESG is a monolith that has arisen relatively quickly to become a critical concern for organizational leadership. If you’re confronting the reality of having new ESG reporting responsibilities and you have … Read more...

How Document Control Software Helps You Meet the Requirements for ISO 9001:2015

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ISO 9001:2015 eliminates the distinction between records, processes, and manuals. Intelex Document Control Software helps you meet ISO 9001:2015 requirements
ISO 9001:2015 eliminates the distinction between records, processes, and manuals by using the category documented information to describe all of them. Intelex Document Control Software can help you meet the requirements of ISO 9001:2015.

Unlike previous iterations of ISO 9001, ISO 9001:2015 does not prescribe specific approaches to document governance. Instead, it is up to each organization to determine its approach to the maintenance, retention, and disposition of documentation.

ISO 9001:2015 eliminates the distinction between records, processes and manuals by using the category “documented information” to describe all of them. The phrase maintain documented information describes working documentation that requires regular updates, such as procedures and work instructions. The phrase retain documented information refers to document types such as records that provide evidence of past conformity with requirements.

ISO 9001:2015 has requirements for documented information throughout the standard. The table below collects all the references to required documented information.

Clause
… Read more...

The War on ESG Greenwashing

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Many organizations brag about their green credentials, but how many of their claims are true? Whether by accident or through deception, greenwashing as part of ESG management is on the rise.
Many organizations brag about their green credentials, but how many of their claims are true? Whether by accident or through deception, greenwashing as part of ESG management is on the rise.

It’s not unusual for companies to be too enthusiastic when it comes to promoting the benefits of their products. Chewing gum doesn’t make life more fun, the latest technology gadget won’t guarantee your popularity and limited-edition running shoes won’t get you promoted to the NBA any time soon. Everyone knows this, but allowing this mixture of fantasy and reality to play out has been a fundamental tenet of corporate marketing for decades without causing any significant problems.

In the world of environment, social and governance (ESG), however, reality can hit extremely hard. When companies make promises to meet environmental commitments, such as reducing emissions, customers and regulators expect companies to keep those promises. When those promises fall short, the … Read more...

What is the Critical Data for ESG Management and Reporting? 

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With ESG reporting becoming a mandatory component of ESG management, you need to collect and analyze lots of data from across your organization. It can be hard to know where to start, but Intelex's ESG reporting software can help you figure it out.
With ESG reporting becoming a mandatory component of ESG management, you need to collect and analyze lots of data from across your organization. It can be hard to know where to start, but Intelex’s ESG reporting software can help you figure it out.

Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is an approach that allows organizations to measure their contributions to sustainability and ethical practices in a way that provides transparency to the market, financial benefits to the organization and benchmarking for industry. It is a response to increasing calls around the world for organizations to play a more significant role in creating a sustainable future while maintaining ethical behavior and contributing to the communities in which they operate.  

ESG is an implementation of the aspirations of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which contains 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) according to the following categories, as shown in Table … Read more...

It’s Not All Bad News: How ESG Management Is Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change

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Why Your ESG Management Program is a Good-News Story
Many organizations are innovating to become more sustainable. From leading brands to small businesses, everyone can make a contribution to building a better world.

In the fight against climate change, the news reports can be dire reading. This summer alone, an unprecedented heat wave in China is impacting the global supply chain, creating hydropower shortages and providing conditions for devastating fires. The American south is grappling with weather that shifts radically between drought and severe flooding. In the UK and Europe, a brutal heatwave has killed hundreds and caused significant property damage as a result of rural fires. 

It would be easy to say that this is simply fearmongering by the media, but regular reports from climate science support the thesis that man-made climate change is having a significant impact on severe weather events. No matter where we look, the news about climate change seems all bad. 

However, the truth … Read more...

Lessons from the U.S. Army Climate Change Strategy

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As the threat of climate change becomes a reality, the world will become a more dangerous place. To meet this challenge, the U.S. Army has released its first climate change strategy.
As the threat of climate change becomes a reality, the world will become a more dangerous place. To meet this challenge, the U.S. Army has released its first climate change strategy.

One doesn’t usually think of the military as being concerned primarily with sustainability. However, the U.S. Army is proving that climate change preparation is necessary for every organization by releasing its first ever Climate Strategy. The strategy emphasizes making the Army more adaptive and resilient to a changing world while decarbonizing its operations in line with the government’s overall approach to meeting climate reduction targets.

This approach will be an important component of a strategy designed to increase the Army’s self-sufficiency and maintain its operational superiority in the face of climate-related disruption. The U.S. Army generates more pollution than 140 of the countries in the world, which means its sustainability efforts will make a significant contribution to international … Read more...

How the War in Ukraine Is Impacting ESG and Supply Chain

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Business resiliency and crisis management are more critical than ever, and supply chains that can adapt quickly to global disruption by developing diverse supplier relationships should become the norm and not the exception.

Russian’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 marked a radical shift in global geopolitics. Almost two years after the COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented global disruption, the rapid changes across Eastern Europe has further demonstrated that the world as it existed in 2019 is over.

As Blackrock’s Larry Fink has pointed out, the era of globalization that we’ve come to consider the natural order of things over the last 30 years is over. Only time will tell what the implications of these events will be. In the meantime, organizations will have to come to terms with new ways of working in a world in which cataclysmic disruptions can happen in a day and change the global landscape … Read more...