Environmental Auditing

Environmental audit is a general term that can reflect various types or evaluations intended to identify environmental compliance and management system implementation gaps, along with related corrective actions. In this way they perform an analogous (similar) function to financial audits. There are generally two different types of environmental audits: compliance audits and management systems audits. Compliance audits tend to be the primary type in the US or within US-based multinationals

The principle of environmental auditing is shown in the following diagram :-

 

 

 

Initiating

  • Assign the audit team members. The auditee should normally be consulted.
  • determine the audit scope, including physical location and organization activities, by lead auditor.

       review the organization’s documentation such as environmental policy statement, manual for meeting its EMS requirements, records, etc. If the documentation is judged to be inadequate to conduct the audit, the auditee should be informed

 

 

Preparing

  • determine audit plan by lead auditor, then inform the audit team members and auditee.
  • assign specific tasks for each audit team members.

prepare necessary working documents such as forms, checklists, etc

 

 

 

Conducting

  • opening meeting :
    • introduce audit team members to auditee’s management.
    • review scope, objectives and audit plan.
    • confirm resources, facilities, time and other relevant items needed to perform auditing.
  • collecting evidence : through interviews, examinations of documents and observation of activities. Indications of nonconformity to the EMS audit criteria should be recorded.
  • audit findings : review and conclude the audit for each activities with responsible personnels.
  • closing meeting : present audit findings to the auditee’s management. Disagreement should be resolved provided that final decision on the significance and description of the audit findings ultimately rest with lead auditor.

 

 

Reporting

  • lead auditor is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the report.

the contents of the report should be consistent with audit plan. Then, the report is submitted to interested parties