Using decentralized, silo-type software programs to track environmental data can lead to a raft of headaches for companies operating multiple facilities.

Common challenges include security, accuracy and difficulty in comparing performance on a site-by-site basis.

American Electric Power (AEP) and Fujifilm were able to overcome some of these hurdles by transitioning to environmental or Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) software, giving them better insight into their environmental performance and making it easier to comply with regulations and evaluate facility activity in a more granular and consistent manner.

Executives from the two companies discussed the challenges and opportunities offered by EHS software Thursday in a GreenBiz.com webcast. Paul Baier, GreenBiz.com senior contributor and vice president of sustainability consulting at Groom Energy, moderated the event.

Greg Gasperecz, vice president of environmental, health and safety at software firm Enviance also participated in the discussion. AEP and Fujifilm both use EHS software from the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company.

According to Baier, there are several common problems with using a decentralized silo approaches for managing data for air, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water, toxins, safety and energy.

"There is poor corporate visibility to ensure regulatory compliance at worldwide facilities, especially in a world today where regulations continue to change at rapid pace," Baier said. "There is little visibility for senior management to understand trends across facilities and from one year to the next."

Processes that are spreadsheet- or paper-based are also not secure, sustainable or accountable, Baier said.

AEP weighed the pros and cons of implementing a compliance system that would integrate across of its plants, explained Greg McCall, AEP's senior engineer of environmental services. It had existing legacy systems in place that couldn't support applications the company would have liked to have used, but a variety of reasons kept some silos in place even though he would have liked to see them go away.

Switching to an corporate EHS system held many benefits, McCall said, such as ease in sharing information, comparing plants' performance, and staff training.

"As we added modules, people were already familiar with the interface.

Keeping the system updated and maintained is important, McCall said. "Having it centralized and in one place helps to keep things current and up-to-date."

Fujifilm's challenges stemmed from its use of an data collection system originating from the company's Japanese headquarters, explained Harold Williams, senior manager of Fujifilm Color Processing.

"It was a difficult system for anyone within the U.S. to navigate because ti was crafted from a Japanese regulatory scheme mindset," Williams said, noting the challenges of inputting information and getting it out.

The system also made it difficult to generate facility-level reports and harder to identify mistakes.

For example, the company established its 2006 greenhouse gas baseline in 2008, but the company didn't realize some of the underlying data was inaccurate until its began using an EHS system.

"It showed to us we had a severely flawed baseline," Williams said. "(It) helped us highlight potential errors."

It's a common quandary, said Gasperecz of Enviance, who remarked that one client discovered through deploying the company's EHS software that individual sites were using slightly calculation methods.

"Some facilities discovered they were using different ways of getting to this endpoint," he said, "and it wasn't the same endpoint."

A replay of the free webcast will be available Friday afternoon.

Image CC licensed by Flickr user r h.