Why is it important for businesses to keep up to date with legislation?
NetRegs aims to be the first place businesses in Northern Ireland and Scotland go to find out what environmental regulations tell them they must do, and what good practice they should also follow. To support this, NetRegs has invited The Compliance People to write this guest blog about why keeping up to date with new and changing legislation makes good business sense.
Whether it is new legislation coming into force, or amendments being made to existing legislation, the legal landscape is constantly evolving. Nowhere is this more common than with environmental legislation, with ambitious climate goals and increased circularity requirements constantly driving changes. This presents a challenge for organisations, but keeping up to date is an important task.
Why keeping up to date is important
There are important moral, legal and financial reasons for businesses to understand and comply with environmental legislation that applies to them and keep informed when those requirements change.
The first step to being legally compliant is understanding which laws apply to your business and the duties you have under them. However, the scope of existing environmental legislation and the requirements placed on a business to ensure it is compliant can be regularly changed via amendments.
The legislation applicable to your organisation depends on a range of factors, including its location, activities, waste streams and any environmental permits you hold. Staying informed about changes in legislation helps you identify what legislation applies to you and the duties you need to meet.
Consequences of noncompliance
Environmental legislation contains a wide range of duties that organisations must comply with, and failing to do so can have serious consequences. Depending on the legislation in question, regulators are able to take enforcement action, impose significant financial penalties and even seek prosecution for those in breach of legal requirements.
Breaching environmental requirements can also cause disruption to business operations and irreversible reputational damage with customers. Today, customers expect businesses to operate in an environmentally responsible way, and staying informed can help reduce the risk of environmental harm while also protecting reputation and avoiding the wider potential consequences.
The benefits of staying informed
Preparation for coming changes
An advantage of staying informed is not just knowing what you need to comply with today, but also what significant changes are going to be made. Significant legal changes will often go through public consultation phases and have content released in draft form before it comes into force. Knowing about these will not only give businesses time to prepare for the coming changes, but also an opportunity to help shape changes to legislation through the public consultation process.
A good example is the introduction of mandatory Digital Waste Tracking across the UK, with new requirements for Scotland and Northern Ireland being phased in during 2027. Knowing about these coming changes gives affected businesses time to prepare before the requirements start to apply.
Opportunities for improvement
Keeping up to date not only allows organisations to prepare for changes and avoid being penalised, but can also provide opportunities to review and improve existing processes. For example, changes to waste management requirements have encouraged businesses to adopt new methods of reducing the waste they produce, use materials more efficiently and even shift processes over to more effective digital systems increasing efficiency and reducing costs.
Understanding how and why environmental legislation is being changed can help a business be proactive in identifying these opportunities alongside meeting its legal requirements.
For organisations operating an environmental management system such as ISO 14001, keeping informed of changes also helps support its continued operation and improvement as well as helping to meet their requirements to identify and understand their compliance obligations.
Keeping informed
Keeping up to date with legal changes does not need to be an overly complicated process. In the age of the internet regularly checking information published by environmental regulators, subscribing to a service that provides regular legal updates or even by following updates from relevant industry organisations is easier than ever. What is important is having a reliable method of identifying the changes that could affect your business and of understanding what those changes will mean.
Environmental law is going to keep evolving, and keeping informed of these changes should be an ongoing part of running a business. Remaining informed and compliant is not only a way of reducing the potential harm to a business, but also of improving a business and making sure it is ready for the changes ahead.
Additional Information
The Compliance People is a consultancy providing advice and software on legal compliance in the areas of environment, energy and health & safety. It is a social enterprise.
NetRegs: is a partnership of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), providing online guidance on environmental regulations and best practice for businesses in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Read about us. It includes guidance per business sector, per environmental topic, legislation and consultation lists, e-courses, an interactive legal compliance self-assessment tool, case studies, newsletter and more.
Register for the NetRegs free monthly newsletter, for businesses in Northern Ireland or Scotland, which covers the latest legislation and open consultations on nature and environment protection, related topics on transport, energy, agriculture, fisheries and animal-welfare, and all things sustainability, as well as guidance, funding opportunities and events.
Get in touch: email us at netregs@sepa.org.uk.