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Concept
Environmental audit
Summary
An environmental audit is a type of evaluation 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.
Compliance obligations can be considered as applicable laws and regulations. Environmental compliance audits are intended to review the site's/company's legal compliance status in an operational context. Compliance audits generally begin with determining the applicable legal compliance requirements against which the operations will be assessed. This tends to include federal regulations, state regulations, permits and local ordinances/codes. In some cases, it may also include requirements within legal settlements.
Compliance audits may be multimedia or programmatic. Multimedia audits involve identifying and auditing all environmental media (air, water, waste, etc.) that apply to the operation/company. Programmatic audits (which may also be called thematic or media-specific) are limited in scope to pre-identified regulatory areas, such as air. Audits are focused on environmental aspects and environmental impacts of a company/site, rather than the contamination status of the real property.
ISO 14000
ISO 14001 is a voluntary international standard for environmental management systems ("EMS"). ISO 14001 provides the requirements for an EMS and ISO 14004 gives general EMS guidelines. An EMS meeting the requirements of ISO 14001 is a management tool enabling an organization of any size or type to:
Identify and control the environmental impact of its activities, products or services;
Improve its environmental performance continually, and
Implement a systematic approach to setting environmental objectives and targets, to achieving these and to demonstrating that they have been achieved.
Official source
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