Guide to EPA Compliance Help for Small Business

Research environmental laws and regulation

Find out exactly which environmental laws and regulations relate to your business and your industry.

I recommend: Locate compliance and enforcement documents and publications at U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Website.

Conduct an environmental audit

You can evaluate your own business compliance using standard environmental guidelines.

I recommend: EPA's Auditing Protocols provide detailed regulatory checklists that you can customize to meet your specific needs.

Analyze the Economic Aspects of Enforcement Actions

Know what non-compliance could mean to you ahead of time in terms of the expense of compliance, cleanup costs or civil penalties.

I recommend: Download EPA's modeling software to analyze the financial aspects of enforcement actions.. Also, Image Wave sells environmental health and safety tracking software and offers a free demo.

Make a plan for ongoing compliance

It is important to understand when and how your business could be inspected. It will help you to create a realistic time frame for compliance if you know the types of inspections and whom to contact if you have a concern.

I recommend: Check out this report from Business & Legal Reports on preparing for an EPA inspection.

Familiarize Yourself With Major Environmental Laws

Understand how what you do today affects the environment tomorrow.

I recommend: If you subscribe to Managerial Technologies Corp., you will have access to U.S. environmental laws for every state through their Internet Information Library. The Environmental Law Institute provides advice, publications and training courses in environmental law.