Getting a Seat at the Table - How EHS Can Become a Strategic Partner To Business

Long relegated to the list of necessary evils for doing business, health, safety and environmental initiatives have struggled with lack of budgets, lack of support and lack of visibility. Today's EHS teams, however, are seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

At a recent Customer Advisory Board meeting, EHS professionals zeroed in on this theme: “How can your department help us deliver more strategic value to our organization?” While continuing to focus on core health, safety and environment compliance programs, the audience discussed the opportunity (and the reality) of becoming more involved in the strategic business direction and operation of their respective companies.

These companies discussed current involvement in initiatives such as:

• New product development and introduction
• New market identification
• Risk management
• Sustainability and corporate responsibility

While this sounds like more work for the already overworked, it actually is great news for all EHS professionals. In other words, this may be the golden ticket for EHS to get a seat at the business table.

CHALLENGES AND AN EVOLVING ROLE

Maintaining the health and protecting the safety of employees has long been standard business practice, particularly in manufacturing organizations. Typical goals of such programs range from minimizing employee risk to complying with regulations to avoiding potential negative perception from a workplace incident.

However, research shows that there is a long-term business and financial impact of suspect workplace health and safety programs. According to OSHA statistics, “Businesses spend $170 billion a year on costs associated with occupational injuries and illnesses — expenditures that come straight out of company profits.”1 And that is just the impact on employees, notwithstanding the cost of environmental issues that are equal or greater in size.

Granted, the global financial impact doesn't necessarily reflect what EHS professionals deal with on a daily basis. Today, our profession is dealing with both internal and external business pressures. Externally, the greatest pressure is coming from a dynamic regulatory environment, particularly in the hazardous substance and chemical arena. Global directives, national initiatives and state regulations all are affecting what companies should or should not use in their products.

Additional pressure from consumers, employees, business partners, non-government entities (NGOs), etc. affects the way we do business. A rising sentiment for greener, safer products is a clear message to us all: This competitive peer pressure is forcing product-focused companies to be more innovative with the products they take to market, the materials that go into the product and the materials and substances that are used in the manufacturing process.

In other words, the concept of sustainability is moving from “nice to have” to “need to have.”

The Aberdeen Group's paper, “The ROI of Sustainability: Making the Business Case,” highlights the top four challenges to achieving sustainability business benefit. Ranked by percentage of respondents agreeing, the top challenges (see Figure 1: Top 4 Challenges of the Sustainability Business Case above) include:

1. Budget challenges
2. Difficulty in demonstrating ROI
3. Fear of disrupting the business process
4. Lack of knowledge

It's no surprise that budget and ROI are the two top challenges. For the profit-driven enterprise, any introduction of cost to the financial equation is going to be met with skepticism unless there is an equal or greater addition to revenue. This is where it's time to think strategically.