Auditing of Environmental, Health and Safety programs for the non-technical auditor

Why Should You Attend:

Worldwide attention focused on global environmental issues and health and safety concerns tops the list of major risk areas that all companies must be able to manage. Environmental issues span further than hazardous waste or toxic emissions. Similarly, health and safety issues span further than a worker slip and fall or carpal tunnel syndrome. Compliance professionals must be prepared to pro-actively and effectively identify the risks incumbent in their everyday processes.

It is critical that compliance professionals be armed with the right level of knowledge to ensure they can effectively risk assess the exposure that their company may be placed in as a result of the massive environmental health and safety regulation promulgated today. In addition, professionals must ensure that their companies have adequate training and communication programs in place that address the wide variety of legislation.

This session is designed to provide compliance and audit professionals with base understanding of the most important risks associated with environmental health and safety concerns. In addition, we will uncover effective deployment strategies for assessing these very technical areas.

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

This session will cover the following learning objectives:

• Common EH&S Risks
• Understanding EH&S terminology
• Regulations impacting EH&S compliance professionals should understand
• Effective utilization of assessment methods: maturity model assessment, interviews, site visits, questionnaires
• Application of attorney client privilege to audits
• Keys to reporting results

Who will benefit:

• Chief Compliance Officers
• Chief Risk Officers
• Chief Legal Officers
• Chief Audit Executives
• Internal Auditors
• Risk professionals
• Compliance professionals
• Environmental professionals
• Health & Safety professionals
• Quality assurance professionals

Lynn Fountain
Former Chief Audit Executive, Aquila

Lynn Fountain has over 35 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. She has 20 years of experience working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance.

Ms. Fountain has held two chief audit executive positions for international companies. Since 2008, she has served in positions where she was responsible for internal audit, enterprise risk management and Sarbanes-Oxley. Ms. Fountain has a private consulting and training business, and she has developed and delivered leading edge training sessions on COSO, internal audit, ERM, accounting, leadership, governance, compliance and ethics. She delivers training for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Institute of Internal Auditors, and multiple seminar and training groups.

Ms. Fountain is the author of two technical books that released in 2015: Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations; Leading the Internal Audit Function. In addition, Ms. Fountain is a frequent blogger on the LinkedIn platform and has also had numerous articles published in professional and technical publications. She is currently authoring a third technical book on corporate ethics and the internal auditor’s challenge.

She has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).

Topic Background:

Compliance rules governing environmental health and safety issues are some of the most complex laws that exist today. Dependent on the industry, rules can incorporate aspects ranging from air, water, soil or waste pollution to worker safety regulations and community and employee health standards. These laws are often very technical in nature and require professionals with specific engineering, scientific or safety background to develop compliance programs. Company’s often times put significant capital into creating elaborate programs to address these various environmental and health and safety requirements. Once the programs are developed, their ongoing operation can overshadow the ongoing need of periodic operating effectiveness.

In today´s business world, with increased stakeholder interest in a company´s environmental health and safety execution plan, the scope of EHS auditing is expanding. Auditing is no longer simply completing a checklist to determine regulatory compliance. In general, the purpose of an environmental, health and safety audit is to ensure compliance with the myriad of environmental, health and safety regulations that have been promulgated by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and many other federal, state and local agencies.

Compliance professionals must understand how to risk assess exposure in these critical areas as well as effectively execute evaluations that can provide their companies with proactive compliance information. In addition, they must be aware of appropriate reporting protocols to adequately protect attorney client privilege.

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