Efficient EHS Assessments with Repurposed Digital Tool

Tuesday, 6 May, 2025
Reading Time : 4 minutes

Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) site assessments are a key aspect of protecting human health and the environment.

In these assessments, skilled inspectors from firms such as ours visit factories, warehouses, hospitals, vacant sites, and other properties to check for potential environmental or human safety problems. They then prepare reports that can be relied upon by government regulators, corporate head offices, and potential buyers of those properties. The result is that potential or current environmental problems get flagged, so that corrective action can be taken.

It’s work that requires a sound methodology for handling vast quantities of on-site measurements, observations, photographs, videos, and other data. This work has to be done in a way that meets regulatory requirements and is done quickly – and cost-effectively.

That’s a tall order.

Repurposing an information tool for a new use

To better meet their clients’ expectations in EHS due diligence, our team in Santander, Spain looked for an information management tool that would help them keep track of the vast flow of data from EHS site assessments. They tried several third-party tools. Then they found their solution in a digital platform that had been developed in 2014 by our New Zealand office, for a totally different purpose -- inventory compilation and condition assessment.

Our EHS team found that this product, called Asset Data Tool (ADT), could be repurposed for EHS site assessments. Our professionals in Spain worked with those in New Zealand and in the UK to modify ADT for the new use.

In this, ADT is an excellent example of applying information revolution tools to niche technical applications.

Enhancing efficiency and consistency

Our professionals in Spain have found ADT a great support to planning an EHS site visit – determining what data will need to be collected including water and soil samples, observations about the state of installations such as tanks and pipes, and photographs of physical assets. This way, regulators’ expectations as well as specific client requirements can be met.

During site visits, ADT helps make sure that no measurements or observations get missed. Inspectors can upload data including photographs from a mobile phone, to the project database. Ease of use means that it’s possible for our teams to visit a site, compile the necessary data and upload it quickly, so that they may be able to complete their work at several sites in each day.

Author

Lucia Diez Cadavid

Spain

Related themes and tags

Post-visit, ADT supports the preparation of site visit reports that are cleanly laid out and meet any special needs the client has, such as inventorying greenhouse gas emissions and supporting net-zero-carbon aspirations. The data from ADT can support development of a plan, together with an estimate of the costs, for correcting any problems found in the site visit.

As well as supporting speedy completion of site assessments, ADT acts as a check to be sure that all necessary data can be gathered, so that there is less likely to be the need for a second visit to gather data that may have been missed. In this, ADT becomes a valuable tool for supporting and training junior staff, including students working on co-op programs.

Broad benefits and client impact

It supports continuity of data, so that an annual site visit will be consistent in approach, no matter who is on the team conducting the site inspection. Consistency is also important in working on global projects. Many of our clients have properties in several countries and continents around the world and can be assured that data will be gathered in a consistent way by our teams in multiple locations.

The ADT tool can be configured so that it will raise a red flag if certain values, such as contaminants in groundwater, exceed the values permitted in that particular jurisdiction.

Some members of the Santander office are part of a working group with members in several countries, that are building awareness of ADT and its EHS applications, within our offices around the world. This group provides information and technical support, so that other teams can learn how to use it, as well as contribute their own insights into how to use ADT to help safeguard human health and the environment.

Therefore, this tool contributes beneficially from different perspectives: it optimizes the recording of data collection in inspections and reduces post-production time, positively impacting the client in terms of the immediate presentation of results with an interactive visualization system such as Power BI. All of this to homogenize the work methodology in multi-site or multi-country projects, favor customer loyalty and attract new customers in order to improve the performance of EHS audits and due diligence.

About the Author

Lucia Cadavid Diez, Environmental, Social and Governance Audit, Due Diligence & Compliance (EAC) Team Leader

Lucia brings over 20 years of experience in quality, sustainability, and environmental management for complex infrastructure projects. Her expertise in Environmental Consulting, Compliance, ESG Due Diligence, and audits spans a wide variety of sectors including real estate, renewables, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, oil & gas, and industry, ensuring the best assessment for any project or transaction.