Lecture 15 Environmental auditing lecturer: Lina Vladimirovna Zhornyak, Associate Professor

Environmental auditing There is no strict regulating procedure in environmental auditing, as each program is specific for this or that enterprise. The most typical environmental auditing (EA) are considered to be site contamination audit – assessment \ remediation in respect of known or suspected site contamination on or below the surface of a site and compliance audit - is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines.

Environmental auditing Generally, environmental auditing program of an industrial enteprise includes the following items (Makarov, Shagarova, 1997): 1) major contaminants and other environmental impact factors; 2) major release sources of contaminants and their control; 3) utilized raw sources, materials, reagents; 4) usable energy resources; 5) end products; 6) basic waste types, methods of disposal and removal; 7) industrial environmental monitoring system; 8) acute local situations, connected with environmental component changes and their consequences; 9) local monitoring system.

Environmental auditing The establishment and implementation of EA was based on the Government Resolution № 168 (26.02.1996) “Regulation statement in licensing of certain activities in environmental protection”. This document entitled RF Environmental Agency and its territorial agencies to conduct licensing of environmental activities, including environmental auditing. However, lack of regulatory and legal framework restrained the implementation of above-mentioned document. The next Government Resolution in environmental protection “Environmental auditing (16.10.1997)” included the basic provisions of environmental activities, HIT LIST and other issues in environmental auditing in RF.

Environmental auditing In 1998 Russian Environmental Agency adopted a federal program in terms of training three professional groups of auditors, total number of which was 156. All auditors received training certificates in environmental auditing, as well as, European accreditation of environmental auditor. These auditors were included in the Federal Environmental Auditor Register of Russian Environmental Agency (Guidelines and Regulatory-analytical principles, 1999).

Environmental auditing Although the international standards ISO 14001, 14004, 14010 were adopted in 1998 (October) and are the fundamentals in today’s EA development, only a few Russian companies are certified in accordance to standards ISO 14001. The first Russian company was JSC Vologodsk Bearing Plant (Makarov, 2001). In 2005 more than 48 Russian companies were certified.

Environmental auditing The scope and style of audits vary, but common stages and activities include(Ecological…, 2009) 1) preparing to conduct an environmental audit( pre-audit stage); 2) effective audit design; 3) conducting the audit ( audit stage); 4) concluding the audit (post-audit stage).

Environmental audit results Results of audit include: all recessions from federal, regional and local regulations performed by the company; all authorized amendments of company’s rules and operation procedure relevant to environmental management, environmental protection and environmental safety; list of existing disadvantages and positive aspects of the organization (Ecological…,2009).

Conclusion 1. Most typical environmental auditing (EA) are considered to be site contamination audit – assessment \ remediation in respect of known or sus-pected site contamination on or below the surface of a site and compliance audit - is a comprehensive review of an organization's adherence to regulatory guidelines. Auditors review security polices, user access controls and risk management procedures over the course of a compliance audit.

Conclusion 2. Differences between EIA and EA are very difficult to define. Within the framework of most national and international EIA systems the project evaluation stage is included, which in its turn, only determines feature-based environmental project requirements and actual environmental impact in facility operation.

Conclusion Major standards regulating the environmental auditing are the ISO 14000 family of standards developed by International Organization for Standardization. Methods in EIA and EA, in many cases, are similar due to the following facts: facility similarity, targets, objectives, and principles. This can be explained by the complementarity of both EIA and EA: in the one case, audit results are eligible in EIA of reconstruction projects of any enterprise, while EIA documents are effective in EA.

Conclusion 5. Major results of EA are: improvement of environmental management system; enhancement of улучшение company’s image; mitigation of public response; reduction of payments and penalties.