Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) legal registers are essential tools for maintaining legal compliance, but they're not always straightforward to build, navigate, or maintain.
This guide explains what an EHS legal register is, what it should contain, and the common challenges organisations face in maintaining them.
What is an EHS Legal Register?
An EHS legal register is a central document or database that contains information on all of the Environmental and Health & Safety (EHS) legislation and standards that apply to an organisation. To suit the needs of the organisation, organisations could have one legal register that covers all applicable legislation, or have multiple legal registers (ie, one for environmental legislation, one for health & safety legislation, one for employment legislation, etc).
Why do organisations need an EHS legal register, and what are the benefits?
All organisations have legal obligations, so legal registers are the logical starting point to understand what obligations exist and how to comply with them. Having a comprehensive and well-maintained legal register can reduce legal risk as legal compliance becomes transparent, actionable, and evidencable.
Not only this, but voluntary standards such as ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 require organisations to maintain an ongoing awareness of what legal obligations apply to their operations and how they are complying with those legal obligations. For ISO 14001 and 45001, having a comprehensive and well-maintained legal register is the best way of proving ongoing awareness of obligations and compliance.
What should go into an EHS legal register?
EHS legal registers can come in many forms, or could be built to suit the needs of an organisation.
At a minimum, a good EHS legal register should include:
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- The title and a summary of each piece of legislation that applies to the organisation.
- All of the organisation’s legal obligations.
- A compliance or non-compliance statement for each obligation, explaining the organisation’s status of compliance.
- A mechanism for keeping track of regular reviews of every piece of legislation in the legal register, and a way of tracking any changes to the legislation.
- A list of amendments to every piece of legislation in the legal register.
EHS legal registers, particularly those which are created and managed in-house, must be written and maintained by a competent person. A competent person is someone who has enough training, knowledge, and/or experience to be able to interpret the legislation, understand the impact on the organisation, and be able to assess compliance versus non-compliance.
What are the common pitfalls of EHS legal registers?
- Obligations can be missed if the EHS legal register is not managed by a competent person.
With regard to EHS legal registers, a competent person means someone who has a solid understanding of the business, its operations, and (if they are writing the legal register themselves) EHS legislation. Without that knowledge, changes could be missed, obligations could be misunderstood, and compliance status could be wrongly assessed. For many SMEs, finding or hiring someone with that level of expertise in-house can be challenging or unattainable, and so using an external legal register provider may be more feasible. - Keeping up to date with updates can be a persistent challenge.
Some organisations only review their legal register in the run-up to an audit, or on a yearly or quarterly basis. This means that they risk being non-compliant with the legislation (due to legal or organisational changes) for months without realising it. This increases legal risk to the organisation, and may not be convincing to an ISO auditor who is assessing whether the organisation maintains an ongoing awareness of all relevant obligations. - Changes can get lost if they are not communicated transparently.
Not only is there a challenge in identifying relevant legislation and keeping up to date with updates, but there is also the challenge of managing changes to the legislation and ensuring that the changes are reflected clearly and accurately in the legal register. For example, if legal registers are managed in dense, unwieldy spreadsheets, changes could get lost or become difficult to communicate, especially if the legal register is significant or is formatted in an inaccessible way. - Time-intensive processes can become unmanageable for time-pressed professionals.
Similarly, long legal registers that need to be updated manually every time they are due for review can be time-consuming and admin-intensive, even when the changes should otherwise be quick and simple.
EHS professionals within organisations should carefully consider the most appropriate form for their legal register based on their operations, where they operate, any voluntary requirements, any communication requirements, and the needs and capabilities of the organisation’s existing EHS team.
How can iCOR help organisations with their EHS legal registers?
Our self-audit tool creates bespoke legal registers with compliance statements tailored to your operations. You can easily add evidence such as risk assessments, training records, and incident reports directly into the system, keeping everything centralised and audit-ready.
Not only this, but our team of EHS professionals keep on top of any changes to the legislation, meaning that you can gain an awareness of change without the overwhelm.
Book a demo to learn how iCOR can help you build a bespoke legal register in less time, with less stress, and without the need to rely on dense spreadsheets.