Measuring Environmental Performance
Environmental auditing is a discipline that has emerged over the last 40 years as a means of providing assurance about environmental issues.
Environmental auditing is an assessment of the nature and extent of harm (or risk of harm) to the environment posed by an industrial process or activity, waste, substance or noise. Environmental audits attempt to achieve various goals, including:
- Verifying compliance with environmental laws and regulations;
- Evaluating the effectiveness of systems and processes that address environmental responsibilities;
- Assessing the risks [to the organisation] of issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, waste management and land degradation;
- Assessing costs of environmental components of existing operations.
An environmental audit should not be confused with an environmental impact assessment (EIA). An EIA is used to evaluate environmental impacts before a project commences, whereas an environmental audit looks at environmental performance for an existing operation.
There are different types of environmental audits, including:
- Environmental management audits
- Environmental assessment audits
- Environmental compliance audits
- Environmental assessment audits
- Waste audits
- Environmental due diligence audits
- Supplier audits
- Social audits