UK businesses can look forward to saving time and money with the Electronic duty of care (edoc) system which promises to transform the manner in which waste is recorded
The initiative was launched by a partnership of waste industry and government bodies led by the Environment Agency and is expected to save organisations across the UK a total of c£8m a year by providing a new electronic alternative to burdensome paperwork.
All UK businesses are required to produce waste transfer notes, which describe the nature of their waste and who they pass it on to. The objective of edoc is to replace the existing paper-based system, which requires around 50 million waste transfer notes to be kept in filing cabinets across the UK.
The edoc system was designed and created by IPL, a consultancy and IT solutions provider. The online system enables businesses to create, share, review, edit, sign and store waste transfer notes via a secure and easy-to-use online portal, thereby eliminating the need for paper copies, and improving the quality of audit and reporting data by providing insight into who has performed what action on a given waste transfer note.
The system will assist businesses with keeping on top of their waste transfer notes by sending email alerts to users when they need to review, edit or sign one off. edoc also allows businesses to directly link it with their waste management systems.
A potential £1m of public money spent on business waste surveys will be saved as the collected data will enable national governments to build a comprehensive view of the waste being produced by UK businesses.
Mat Crocker, Head of Illegals and Waste at the Environment Agency, said:
“For businesses to make the switch from paper to edoc, it was critical that we develop a system that is easy to adopt. IPL’s agile approach to development has been key to this. It allowed us to roll out edoc in a staged way, gathering feedback from an extensive group of potential end users as we went.
As a result, we’ve been able to enhance the design and functionality of the system based on real user experience. The end product is a truly user-focused system, something we could not have achieved with a more conventional approach to software development.”
Paul Jobbins, CEO at IPL, added:
“edoc is one of those rare systems that offers a genuine benefit to every UK business, regardless of its size. It’s free, it’s easy to use and we can all get started today, thereby wiping out what can be a significant overhead and enabling companies to focus more on our core business.
“I’m delighted we’ve delivered such an important project on time, and within the budget we were set.”
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