EHS Glossary
Plain-language definitions of common Environmental Health & Safety terms, and how each one maps to the EHSGuard platform.
TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate)
A standardized safety metric measuring the number of OSHA-recordable injuries and illnesses per 200,000 hours worked (roughly 100 full-time employees for a year). It lets organizations benchmark safety performance over time and against industry peers.
EHSGuard’s Analytics Dashboards calculate and trend TRIR at the organization level.
OSHA Recordable
A work-related injury or illness that meets OSHA’s criteria for recording — generally anything beyond minor first aid, including days away from work, restricted duty, medical treatment, or loss of consciousness. Recordable cases must be logged for OSHA recordkeeping.
EHSGuard’s Incident Reporting captures OSHA recordability and keeps 300/301-ready records.
Near-Miss
An unplanned event that did not result in injury or damage but had the potential to. Tracking near-misses helps organizations identify and correct hazards before they cause an actual incident.
EHSGuard’s Incident Reporting logs near-misses and trends them by severity.
CAPA (Corrective and Preventive Action)
A structured process for addressing the root cause of a problem: corrective actions fix an issue that has occurred, while preventive actions reduce the likelihood of it happening again. CAPA tracking ensures issues are closed out, not just noted.
EHSGuard’s Action Items assign, date, and track corrective and preventive actions to closure.
SDS (Safety Data Sheet)
A standardized document that provides detailed information about a hazardous chemical — its properties, health and physical hazards, safe handling, and emergency measures. Employers must keep SDSs accessible to workers who may be exposed.
EHSGuard’s SDS Library centralizes Safety Data Sheets with search and fast file access.
JSA / JHA (Job Safety / Hazard Analysis)
A technique that breaks a job into steps to identify hazards and define controls before work begins. JSAs and JHAs are core to proactive hazard management on industrial and construction job sites.
EHSGuard’s Incident Reporting captures hazard observations from the field to feed proactive safety.
Lockout/Tagout
A safety procedure that ensures dangerous machines are properly shut off and cannot be started up again while maintenance or servicing is performed, protecting workers from unexpected energization or the release of stored energy.
EHSGuard’s Document Control distributes LOTO procedures with role-based access.
Contractor Prequalification
The process of vetting a contractor’s safety record, credentials, insurance, and compliance before they perform work on your site — a key control for managing third-party safety risk.
EHSGuard’s Contractor & Subcontractor Tracking documents credentials and compliance status.
Lessons Learned
Documented takeaways from incidents, audits, or projects that capture what happened and how to prevent recurrence — turning individual events into shared institutional knowledge across sites.
EHSGuard’s Lessons Learned module captures and shares those takeaways organization-wide.
EHS Management System
Software or a framework that centralizes an organization’s Environmental Health & Safety program — incidents, training, hazardous materials, contractors, documents, and corrective actions — into a single system of record.
EHSGuard is an all-in-one EHS management system for small-to-mid-size industrial operators.
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One platform for incidents, training, SDS, contractors, and compliance.
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