Environmental Compliance Audits are conducted to determine the degree of compliance with applicable environmental laws, regulations, and other statutory instruments. Because of the public relations and legal risks, an outside audit provides essential risk reduction for your business. By bringing in an audit team periodically, you can proactively reduce your risks of non-compliance and prevent incidents before they occur.
Environmental audit is a general term that can reflect various types of 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.
As the name implies, these 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 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 also focused on operational aspects of a company/site, rather than the contamination status of the real property. Assessments, studies, etc. that involve property contamination/remediation are typically not considered an environmental audit.
EnviroSense provides environmental compliance audits to check that companies are meeting legal obligations. This includes both identifying which legislation applies and assessing whether those requirements are met.
As experts in the field and as an outside organisation, we can identify aspects of your business and compliance that are often overlooked internally. We can also conduct compliance audits of your suppliers to ensure that your supply chain is meeting legal requirements for environmental performance. Our services can be tailored to meet your needs.
Partner understands the importance of conducting Environmental Regulatory Compliance Audits in order to identify environmental liabilities of a facility’s operations, such as: improper handling, storage or disposal of hazardous substances; faulty or misused equipment leading to spills or releases of hazardous substances; human health risks; or improper permitting and recordkeeping that can lead to significant fines. A thorough compliance audit should assist an owner or facility manager with correcting these concerns to limit penalties and liability.
Partner’s Environmental Regulatory Compliance Audits are conducted by seasoned professionals who fully understand the broad range of environmental regulatory compliance issues that can be encountered at various facilities. Our professionals can also help to mitigate concerns that may become apparent during an Environmental Compliance Audit, providing workable solutions. Detection, disclosure, and correction are essential to preventing future liabilities.
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