Managing EHS and sustainability across a multinational rail operation is no small undertaking. For Harsco Rail, with around 1,300 employees spread across manufacturing facilities and field service teams worldwide, the challenge wasn’t just keeping people safe. It was having the evidence to back it up.

By partnering with EcoOnline, Harsco Rail moved from fragmented, manual processes to a unified platform that gives leadership real visibility, holds teams accountable, and keeps compliance on track across every region they operate in.

I told my boss, I need help. I cannot do this alone. I need a system to bring everything together globally.

– Victor Young,
Director of Global EHS, Harsco Rail

“Everything felt very rudimentary”

Harsco Rail’s EHS operations relied on spreadsheets and email chains. Victor Young, Director of Global EHS, had rebuilt the function almost from scratch following a period of significant disruption. He knew a manual approach wouldn’t hold.

“Before EcoOnline, everything felt very rudimentary. It was spreadsheets and emails, and you never really knew if anyone had seen them.”

With manufacturing sites and contract service teams operating across multiple countries, each with different regulatory requirements and customer expectations, inconsistency was a real risk. Victor needed a system that could bring everything together and make accountability visible at every level.

Real-time visibility that leadership actually use

EcoOnline’s EHS software gave Harsco Rail something it had been missing: a single, centralised view of safety performance that leaders could act on. Victor starts every working day the same way.

“The first thing I do every morning is go into EcoOnline dashboards to see what’s happened across the business.”

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That intelligence doesn’t stay with the EHS team. Every Monday, a safety performance report goes out to senior leadership, giving decision-makers immediate sight of what’s happening across the global operation.

“We send real-time dashboards out every Monday, so leaders can immediately see safety performance.”

For a business operating across time zones, the platform’s always-on accessibility matters too. Field teams and traveling staff can log incidents with incident reporting software and access documentation any time, from anywhere. “It’s a 24-hour system. It doesn’t shut down, and it’s always there when our people are working.”

Turning supervisors into safety owners

Since implementing EcoOnline, there has been a shift in how frontline supervisors engage with safety. Rather than EHS sitting with one person or team, the platform distributes ownership. And people notice.

“If something comes in from EcoOnline with that banner, people pay attention and actually read it.”

Automated notifications, clear action ownership, and incident reporting mean supervisors at site level are active participants in the safety process. “It builds supervisors’ skill sets and helps them see what’s really happening at their locations.”

Fewer incidents, better response times, and a measurable improvement in safety culture across the business.

“It saves time, reduces risk, and improves people’s skill sets – which means fewer incidents and better productivity.”

ESG readiness built on data, not guesswork

Sustainability reporting is a reality for businesses operating across regulated markets. Through EcoOnline’s ESG software, Victor’s team now has structured, auditable ESG data that’s ready for CSRD compliance, customer audits, and internal reporting.

“This gets me away from spreadsheets and gives me the calculations and data that I didn’t have before.”

Slicing data by region or customer makes it easy to meet the exact requirements of different markets. “I can break information down by region or by customer and give them exactly what they need.”

Where Harsco Rail’s parent organisation still relies on spreadsheets for ESG data, Victor is making the case at the corporate level. Not with a pitch, but with output. “I’m not filling out spreadsheets anymore – I’ll just give them the sustainability report from the system.”

Victor’s team can walk into any audit or customer review fully prepared. “This gives us confidence. We know where we stand, we know what needs action, and we can prove it.”