How can environmental data management software help Canadian miners meet compliance needs?

Canada’s environmental regulations are as diverse and expansive as its geography. Under Canada’s Constitution Act, 1867, legislative powers are divided between the federal government and provincial legislatures, including the authority to enact environmental law.

At the federal level, key regulations such as the:

• Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999
• National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), and
• Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting Program,

set some of the baseline requirements for how mining companies must track and report their environmental impacts.

At a provincial level, reporting on air emissions, water and wastewater treatment and discharges, waste management and other environmental impact assessments vary from one jurisdiction to the next, right down to how pollutants, contaminants and the environment are defined.

Adding another layer of complexity are industry-led programs such as The Mining Association of Canada’s Towards Sustainable Mining initiative, driving the industry towards more sustainable practices, which impose further performance and disclosure requirements as a condition of membership.

What this means for mining companies operating across multiple provinces is a fragmented set of thresholds, reporting formats and obligations to adhere to in order to remain compliant. Without the right software, managing environmental data can become complex and resource intensive.

This is where choosing environmental data management software can make all the difference, both operationally and for compliance. Not all environmental data management software are created equally so finding a solution that can flexibly and efficiently capture every aspect of your environmental data is key to keeping on top of your environmental compliance.

Here’s what to look for when selecting environmental data management software to meet Canada’s complex compliance requirements.

Bringing data in

Your environmental data management software should be able to seamlessly import data from a range of sources such as field, analysis, observation, real-time and other systems data, with the ability and flexibility to remedy file load mapping issues as they arise.

Robust environmental data management software should also accommodate metadata and other related information, while maintaining a complete audit trail.

If your software can help eliminate as much manual handling as possible from the point of data collection through to analysis, you’re reducing the risk of human error, and time and resources required to stay compliant.

Ultimately, every piece of environmental data you need to make confident decisions around your environmental impact, should be ready as timely and efficiently as possible, in a single source of truth.

Tracking compliance obligations consistently and confidently

Keeping your finger on the pulse of your compliance in near real-time can be the difference between responding too late after a contamination incident or community complaint and proactively identifying and managing exceedances as soon as they occur.

The right environmental data management software will enable you to coordinate every activity required to meet sampling, monitoring and reporting obligations. This includes:

• alerting your team when data needs to be collected,
• identifying missing data,
• notifying your team when limits or exceedances are approaching, and
• alerting the right people when action needs to be taken.

All of these play a critical role in proactively maintaining compliance throughout the year, rather than relying on a once-a-year review when compiling environmental reports.

Here’s an example of how an Australian energy provider is using environmental data management software to effectively manage its environmental compliance obligations.

Getting data out

It doesn’t matter how good the software is – if the data going into it never sees the light of day. Your environmental data management software should easily connect with:

• other systems via APIs to send data where it’s needed,
• internal systems to build dashboards and reports,
• external tools to produce extracts for data-sharing with regulatory bodies or community stakeholders.

How EnviroSys can help Canadian mining companies manage their environmental compliance needs

Canadian mining companies are using environmental data management software, such as EnviroSys, to manage complex environmental compliance obligations anytime, and everywhere.

EnviroSys is acQuire’s versatile environmental data management software, offering a fully integrated, end-to-end view of the state of your compliance. EnviroSys users can coordinate activities required to meet sampling, monitoring and reporting obligations and the subsequent collection of data.

With EnviroSys, you can confidently prove compliance by drilling into your data and providing a complete, auditable trail from obligations to outcomes.

Read more about how EnviroSys can help you manage your environmental compliance.