BCEE 2102 Environmental Auditing

Summary

The script discusses environmental auditing as a systematic evaluation of an organization's environmental performance and compliance with standards. It highlights the importance of auditing in ensuring environmental protection and legal compliance. The lecture also explores economic instruments used in environmental management, such as taxes, subsidies, and tradable permits, to incentivize good practices and deter pollution. The benefits of these instruments include compliance enforcement, risk mitigation, and promoting environmental awareness and efficiency.

Takeaways

• 🔍 Environmental auditing is a systematic and documented evaluation of an organization's environmental performance, management systems, and processes.
• 📚 The primary focus of environmental auditing is to ensure compliance with set standards and regulations, including those proposed in the EIA report.
• 🌿 Audits are conducted post-operational phase to check for environmental impacts and adherence to mitigation measures.
• 🏭 The audit process includes evaluating air emissions, land and water pollution, legal constraints, community impact, and public perception of the company.
• 🔑 Types of audits include compliance checks, environmental policy adherence, health and safety, risk and contingency planning, and corporate policy assessments.
• 🏢 Corporate audits assess the entire company's policies, structures, procedures, and practices, focusing on due diligence and potential environmental and financial risks.
• 🔁 There are two categories of audits: internal, conducted by employees, and external, conducted by third-party auditors.
• 🌐 External audits may be recognized by local government and result in state of the environment reports, while internal audits focus on policy impact and management.
• 📈 Audit stages include pre-audit planning, on-site audit activities, and post-audit reporting, action planning, and stakeholder disclosure.
• 💹 Economic instruments in environmental management aim to create behavior change favorable to the environment through incentives and disincentives.
• 🌱 The use of economic instruments is recommended to encourage good environmental behavior, deter bad practices, and influence industries and consumers towards environmental sustainability.

Q & A

What is environmental auditing?

Environmental auditing is a systematic, documented, periodic, and objective evaluation of an organization's management system, processes, and performance in relation to environmental protection and compliance with set standards.

What is the primary focus of environmental auditing?

The primary focus of environmental auditing is compliance, ensuring that a facility or project adheres to the established environmental standards and regulations.

When is environmental auditing typically conducted?

Environmental auditing is usually conducted after a project has been operational for some time, often as a check and balance against the mitigation measures proposed in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report.

What are some of the areas assessed during an environmental audit?

Areas assessed during an environmental audit include air emissions, land and water emissions, legal constraints, community impact, landscape effects, and public perception of the operating company.

What types of environmental audits are mentioned in the script?

The script mentions various types of environmental audits, including compliance audits, environmental policy and procedure audits, health and safety audits, risk and contingency planning audits, and operational audits.

What is the difference between internal and external environmental audits?

Internal audits are conducted by employees of the organization, while external audits involve hiring external auditors to review the organization's environmental management practices. External audits may also include assessments by regulatory bodies like the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA).

What are the stages of environmental auditing?

The stages of environmental auditing include the pre-audit stage, where objectives and teams are set up, the audit stage, which involves on-site inspections and evaluations, and the post-audit stage, where findings are compiled into a report and action plans are developed.

What are the benefits of environmental audits?

Benefits of environmental audits include identifying problems, ensuring compliance with laws and regulations, preventing potential environmental problems, increasing organizational awareness of environmental impacts, and promoting more efficient use of resources and financial savings.

What are economic instruments in environmental management?

Economic instruments in environmental management are market-based tools that can be incentives or disincentives designed to encourage or discourage behaviors that impact the environment, aiming to influence behavior in favor of environmental protection.

Why are economic instruments used in environmental management?

Economic instruments are used to achieve environmental objectives at a lower cost than traditional regulatory approaches, to encourage voluntary compliance, and to create a market-driven approach to environmental protection.

What are some examples of economic instruments mentioned in the script?

Examples of economic instruments mentioned include property rights, taxes and subsidies, grants, tradable permits, and charges for resource use or emissions.