Environmental Auditing in Environmental Management Plan

The ISO 14010 standard defines an environmental audit as;

"Systematic, documented verification process of objectively obtaining and evaluating audit evidence to determine whether specified environmental activities, events, conditions, management systems or information about these matters conform with audit criteria, and communicating the result of this process to the client"

The key elements in the environmental audits includes
- systematic
- documented
- verification process
- objective
- evaluating audit evidence
- activities, events, conditions, standards, EMP specification- communication of results

Environmental Auditing (compliance) is a key 'checking' step to ensure that the project proponent and contractors implement and adhere to the environmental requirement specified in the EMP. Typical audit criteria include:

a- EIA approval conditions by DOE, NREB, contract tender specifications
b- Standars and guidelines enforced by DOE
c- Other requirements, policy, ets

The Environmental auditing procedures should be in line with the requirements of ISO 14000 standards. The approach typically involves:
- Document review
- site inspection
- interviews

This typically covers
- monitoring data
- minutes of meetings
- correspondence with DOE
- latest site drawings
- project schedule updates
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