University-wide procedure for binding requirements – legal and other requirements

PROCEDURE
Policymaker: Sustainability Manager
Valid from: 29 March 2019
Amended as of: 2 Jan 2023
Registration number: V-2023-0004-02
Responsible for review and queries: KTH Sustainability Office

1. Purpose

The purpose of this procedure is to describe how work is done to identify, monitor and follow up the binding requirements that KTH Royal Institute of Technology is obliged to follow within the framework of the environmental management system.

2. Scope/delimitation

The procedure covers the binding requirements that apply to KTH’s activities in respect of the external environment.

3. Definitions

OS

Operational Support

KTH SO

KTH Sustainability Office

Binding requirements

Binding requirements are legal requirements and other requirements that KTH must fulfil. Legal requirements are covered by acts, regulations, directions and the annual public service agreement from the Government. Other requirements are commitments that KTH has established with organisations through contracts and agreements. Other requirements are also covered by internal decisions to follow certain guidelines and recommendations.

Legal monitoring system

The legal monitoring system is a digital tool that supports efforts to comply with the legal and other requirements in the environmental field that covers KTH.

4. Responsibilities

• The President is ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance with binding requirements within the framework of KTH’s activities.
• Heads of schools/the University Director are responsible for ensuring that each organisation complies with binding requirements.
• The Sustainability Manager is responsible for ensuring that there is a legal monitoring system in place to ensure compliance with statutes and other requirements.
• The chemicals officer for KLARA at the KTH Sustainability Office is responsible for the administration of the legal monitoring system, including contact with the responsible functions at the schools/OS and the contracted supplier of the legal monitoring system.
• The function officers at the schools/University Administration are responsible and administer texts for each school/OS in the legal monitoring system.
• Fellow-workers are responsible for compliance with the binding requirements related to their tasks.

5. Implementation

The legal monitoring system manages the monitoring and auditing of binding requirements. This includes both legal requirements and other requirements identified as being applicable to the organisation.

The legal monitoring system gathers together licences, inspection records, reports, decisions and contracts. It is possible to sort the requirements for each school and OS in the legal monitoring system. The schools and OS have responsible functions with administrator rights and the ability to make changes in the legal monitoring system.

All employees have access to the legal monitoring system via the KTH intranet and can find out which binding requirements are applicable to each school and OS. Some binding requirements in the external environment also cover areas such as the working environment and safety. In these cases, there are references to the responsible functions that coordinate and administer this within OS.

Identification and continuous monitoring of binding requirements

The KTH Sustainability Office (KTH SO) is responsible for continuously identifying and monitoring binding requirements with the help of the legal monitoring system.

Notifications of amendments to legislation are sent out regularly by WSP and dealt with by KTH SO for an initial assessment.

KTH SO, together with WSP, gathers together function officers at the schools and OS twice a year to review amendments and new legislation. Each school and OS in the legal monitoring system then reviews the updates that need to be made in order to comply with binding requirements.

Responsible functions at the schools and OS must report to KTH SO any changes to the organisation that may affect the binding requirements that cover KTH.

Identification of binding requirements is described in Procedure for basic analyses and operational processes.

Compliance with binding requirements

An audit concerning compliance with binding requirements is conducted once a year at the times of the internal environmental audit. A relevant area is selected for examination to ensure that procedures are in place for compliance with the binding requirements applicable to the organisation.

The audit is performed at each school and OS. KTH SO is responsible for conducting the audit of the binding requirements with the relevant responsible function within the schools and University Administration. The audit is conducted using the audit tool available in the legal monitoring system.

Any non-conformances and suggestions for improvement must be addressed and followed up when evaluating compliance with the binding requirements. The results of the legal audit are followed up at the time of the management review at the schools, University Administration and KTH’s management.

6. Documentation

• Legal monitoring system; “Statutes and other binding requirements for the external environment”

• Stakeholder analysis, environment analysis and risk-opportunity analysis

• Annual cycle of the environmental management system

• Procedure for basic analyses and operational processes

7. Appendices

No appendices.

8. Change log