By John Scifres Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rating is all about the long game. Industry has learned if they are to stay in business and thrive in today’s world, they must be sustainable in all facets of their culture.  For our Health and Safety Division, the “social” portion means offering our client’s the best tools to take care of their workers.  Today, compliance with Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) regulations is a given and employers are expected to go beyond compliance in their worker safety efforts. The links between employee health and safety, morale, loyalty, and retention are undeniable.  Healthy, happy, loyal, and experienced workers make for a sustainable business.  Today’s investors know this and demand it from the companies they want to back. Cornerstone helps to improve ESG metrics by maximizing worker health and safety with a stepwise approach from assessment to training.

Assessment

The first step in our Health and Safety Management System services is a baseline assessment of Compliance to get the feel for where a company is in the spectrum from Compliance to Sustainability.  It is a Gap Analysis of sorts, but it gives our experienced evaluators a feel for what they have to work with.  We present our clients with a detailed report of regulatory applicability including a finding of compliance or non-compliance for each element.  For those areas that need work, a Findings and Corrective Actions Summary becomes a compliance punch list that can be attacked quickly and systematically to bring the site into compliance.  We can couple a Compliance Assessment with a Culture Assessment to dive even further into needed actions to improve the “S” in ESG. Either along with or as a result of the assessment, Cornerstone then begins the task of evaluating worker health and safety hazards and their risks with a Risk-Based Workplace Hazard Assessment.  The goal of this is to assess each job and its component tasks to determine the hazards present.  Our evaluators determine the risk of negative outcomes from each task by judging the Severity and Probability of the negative outcome.  They assign a numerical score to each and the product of those gives us a Risk Level for each hazard. Of special note is our Ergonomic focus.  A critical part of workers’ health and safety is how they feel and move while accomplishing their jobs.  Using the risk assessment data our ergonomics team monitors employees in each workstation to ensure a practical solution to complex ergonomic issues.

Control

Generally, we determine an acceptable risk level with the client and anything exceeding that level requires action.  Our staff then determines required or recommended controls for each hazard.  We use the U.S. OSHA Hierarchy of Controls to guide this part of the assessment.  In the end, Cornerstone Health and Safety Evaluators produce a prioritized list of necessary controls.  Those hazards with a higher risk level demand more urgent action. Controls often include the development of administrative policies, procedures, and programs.  Cornerstone works hard to develop these along with stakeholders at every level of the company.  The information gathered during previous steps guides this process.   It can range from something as simple as protective gloves to Injury and Illness Prevention Plans and the establishment and facilitation of Health and Safety Committees.  Worker Health and Safety training and coaching are integral to making these Administrative Controls come to life.

ESG Reporting

While the methods to arrive at an ESG rating differ, they all have the same end goal in mind; to identify those companies that consider their human resources as a long-term investment in their success.  Data from government reports of compliance, worker injury audits, and worker experience of every sort regarding compliance and culture all play into ratings.  Everything we do helps our clients prove to the world through ESG score that they are a sustainable business.  This is never more evident than in our approach to worker health and safety.  We carefully determine compliance gaps, rate the risk of everything done at a client’s operation, and then work closely with all levels of employees at the facility to ensure that compliance obligations are met, hazards are controlled, and workers go home at the end of their workday in the same condition that they arrived.  And, we do this over time with the overall goal to continually improve all factors that play into an ESG rating.

Further Information

As ESG reporting becomes more vital and more publicly transparent, Cornerstone’s industrial health and safety experts can help ensure that your programs and data are ready for the spotlight.  Contact us at info@corner-enviro.com or through our website at https://www.cornerstone-ehs.com/contact-us/

John Scifres is Cornerstone’s Director of Environmental, Health and Safety.  He is a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager and is a Provisional Lead Auditor for ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001.  He oversees Cornerstone’s team of EHS Project Managers.  In addition, he consults with clients nation-wide to ensure compliance with EHS regulations and evaluate opportunities to go above and beyond compliance.