3 minutes
Water, air, soil, or waste – companies that identify and analyze environmental aspects of their business activities gain a competitive advantage, especially regarding international standards such as ISO 14001. For the company Berliner Wasserbetriebe, utilities provider in the metropolitan area of Berlin, Germany, the assessment of environmental aspects is common practice. In 2009, the company implemented the software solution Quentic that supports their HSE management.
For more than 150 years the company Berliner Wasserbetriebe is responsible for drinking water supply and wastewater services in the metropolitan area of Berlin, the capital of Germany. With over 4,600 employees, it is the largest water supply and wastewater disposal company in Germany. On a daily basis, nine waterworks provide 3.7 million people with drinking water. Berliner Wasserbetriebe is certified in accordance with DIN EN ISO 9001, DIN EN ISO 14001 as well as ISO 45001.
ISO 14001 certified companies must identify and assess aspects impacting or possibly impacting the environment that are caused by the company and its operations. To meet the challenge to comply with legal standards, Berliner Wasserbetriebe implemented Quentic, a certified software solution compliant with ISO 14001 and ISO 45001. Since 2009, the company has been using several Quentic modules to manage the vast set of HSE data across projects and business units.
The software gives users access to their respective fields of activity. Access rights are individually defined from user to user. All aspects are scored systematically in standardized forms and compiled into a report in Quentic. “The major benefit for our company is the consistency across our company. Through the company-wide assessment process we comprehensively investigate the issue of environmental protection on a yearly basis,” explains Maritta Bergner, Head of the Department for Environmental Protection at Berliner Wasserbetriebe. “On the same account the systematic assessment keeps people on schedule and prevents them from going off on a target. Instead, the assessment provides transparency across company and clearly indicates which business units need to take actions.”
“The increasing demands on companies require a complete, seamless and legally-sound documentation system. This is exactly what Quentic provides.”
Nicolas Tauchnitz, Compliance Management, Berliner Wasserbetriebe
Berliner Wasserbetriebe aims at the sustainable management and assesses crucial environmental aspects, such as water, wastewater, air, energy and resource consumption on a regular basis. The Quentic Risks & Audits module offers the required functions to analyze HSE data. The software enables to individually compose a set of factors that reflect company-specific environmental aspects. The scale for the assessment is flexible and can be weighted individually. Each company decides how to evaluate and display its HSE data. Quentic is also a very flexible software solution – whether a summary or a detailed analysis is needed, whether assessing environmental aspects for one specific site or across business units – it is all done with a click of a button.
An environmental aspect assessment can show insignificant or significant impact leading to a low, medium or high need for action. At the end of the assessment the software automatically creates a summary that will be sent to upper management. The assessment results feed into the process of continuous improvement and provide the basis for strategic decisions. The software does not replace the function of the Environmental Manager, rather it is a professional tool to implement an efficient HSE management, to strengthen internal communication and to involve all stakeholders in the process.
