10 Nov 2017 - Speech to 2017 Environmental Compliance Conference, Auckland by Wayne Fisher – General Manager of CS-VUE
Members of the organising committee, the Planning Institute, invited speakers, and delegates. Welcome to the 2017 Environmental Compliance Conference here in Auckland - two days of great insight and best practice at such a critical time for our sector. As we know, environmental compliance is witnessing significant levels of attention and change not seen since the introduction of the RMA in 1991. It is an honour for CS-VUE to once again be a part of this conference and this year as the major sponsor. From our position as providers of cloud-based compliance software across the public and private sectors, we have seen the enforcement of compliance increase markedly over the past decade. The regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly tough and increasingly costly. A quick scan of recent court cases across the country reveals fines from $17,000 for mining to $60,000 for effluent discharge and these are not isolated incidents. We have also witnessed a sizeable swing in the ways compliance is managed and how evidence is gathered, processed, and reported. The simple fact is, the compliance environment is now more demanding, more difficult to manage, has many more stakeholders, and comes with bigger fines. Better systems go a long way in assisting with these issues but as with all systems, if you don’t use them properly, or you don’t have systems in place that you can wholeheartedly rely on, you’ll quickly come unstuck. Our collective challenge over the coming years is to adjust to and manage the changing landscape. The good news is there are ways to effectively achieve this and even ways to work more closely with the regulators. For those of you as regulators, this will also be welcome news. CS-VUE has recently completed a significant piece of innovation with NZTA to manage the compliance across the $700m ‘Puhoi to Warkworth’ new motorway build. Our enhanced management system allows three-way communication between NZTA, the contractors, and the regulator, Auckland Council. What’s more, our regulatory software module can be easily applied across any regulator, council, or corporate and for any type of consenting right down to trade waste. Another driver we have witnessed in the market is more data residing outside of organisations, which has the added benefit of building in resilience and keeping critical information safe from the likes of earthquakes, floods or fires. Technology is now playing its part to manage this data and can deliver a great return on investment simply by performing many functions that were once done manually. The upside of this is that there is more control from an operational level – that is compliance on the ground being fed directly into compliance systems. This leads to better information for management teams and enhanced oversight at board level to better manage risk and governance. Data enables organisations to create viable and valuable audit trails directly from the field to final sign off. And of course, evidence can now be gathered directly from IoT devices. The major benefits here of course are in time and cost savings and increased compliance levels, but also in the reduction of ‘risk’ - all of which keep the likes of chairs, boards, mayors and councillors very happy! Our company, CS-VUE, works closely with large government departments and agencies, many city and district councils, and many corporate entities. Sectors we work in include oil and gas, quarrying, mining, and some of the country’s key ports. And for over a decade, our team has built a reputation based on experience, trust, tailoring solutions and delivering innovation, as well as great results for our clients. CS-VUE has a large booth outside. Please join us to find out just how rapidly compliance technology is shifting in your space, and how we can benefit your organisation - be it managing your own compliance or monitoring that of others. We’ll also give you a sneak peek into the future – with some of the exciting things on our development horizon. Over the next couple of days there are sessions on compliance enforcement, pollutant monitoring, and amongst many others, we’ll hear from NZ Petroleum & Minerals… And of course most importantly our guest speaker, Te Radar!
| A CS-VUE release || November 10. 2017 |||