This comprehensive international auditing manual tells you why and how to audit internationally and gives you specific programs for 23 countries. You'll learn the cultural, legal, and practical aspects of successful international auditing and find key contact information for environmental officials in many countries. International Environmental Auditing, written with the help of 42 legal experts from Baker & McKenzie, contains practical environmental auditing resources, including an extensive analysis of international environmental auditing initiatives, programs, and organizations worldwide; analysis of auditing and disclosure obligations and confidentiality issues for 19 countries; a list of 233 international environmental agreements, treaties, and conventions; and requirements and applications for professional auditor organization certification.

Environment and sustainable development challenges are a matter of global concern. Trillions of dollars of mostly public money are invested every year in domestic and international policies and programs to address these?challenges. The effectiveness of these policies and programs is critical to environmental sustainability. Performance audits that examine the effectiveness of governmental policies and programs heavily influence their implementation. Despite this, performance auditing in the environment field?has received very little academic attention. This book takes a closer look at performance auditing of public sector environmental policies and programs. It examines trends in global environmental performance auditing; and how it is currently practiced drawing on a global survey and case studies from Canada, India and Australia. In doing so, it identifies issues and challenges faced by Supreme Audit Institutions in undertaking these performance audits. This book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners of sustainable development, environmental auditing and public sector auditing as well as to donor organisations engaged in these areas.

Many of the best and most successful companies are no longer content to do the minimum required to achieve compliance with environmental regulations. Instead, a new standard of environmental excellence has arisen. A high-quality environmental system is now seen both as a means to regulatory compliance and as a very cost-effective way of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of operations in general. In this way, the environmental audit often serves as a significant driver for improvement within the overall management system. Auditing for Environmental Quality Leadership details these new techniques and practices in environmental auditing and shows how their place in a Total Quality Environmental Management System can help companies achieve environmental excellence and a competitive advantage. Sponsored by the Environmental Auditing Roundtable, this book covers the major topics in defining, conducting, assessing, and improving an environmental audit. Unique in its breadth and depth of coverage, this book includes: Comprehensive treatment of environmental auditing by recognized leaders in the field Application of Total Quality Environmental Management methods to develop efficient environmental auditing programs that delve into root causes and sort out what adds value from what does not Analysis of the movement toward standardization of environmental auditing principles and practices, including such timely international issues as efforts to produce North American standards, the European Eco-label and Audit scheme, and the International Standard Organization's ISO 9000 and 14000 series Examination of innovative auditing programs developed by leading corporations and trade organizations, including Allied Signal, Union Carbide, Lockheed, and many others Latest methods of information management technology and automated auditing for assembling, auditing, and reviewing environmental data Because of its thorough, authoritative examination of the issues, illuminating case studies, and wealth of practical guidance, environmental professionals and corporate and government managers will find Auditing for Environmental Quality Leadership essential reading on this crucial topic. Auditing for Environmental Quality Leadership Beyond Compliance to Environmental Excellence To meet the challenges of regulatory compliance, international standards, and the need to "work smarter" in today's marketplace, greater emphasis is being placed on environmental auditing—especially among the most forward-looking companies. In this book, you will find a comprehensive presentation of the entire field of environmental auditing by leading experts in the field. It covers the latest practices and shows, through specific case studies, how major corporations are applying them to achieve environmental excellence and competitive advantage. Sponsored by the Environmental Auditing Roundtable, this book covers the major procedures used in defining, conducting, assessing, and improving an environmental auditing program. Such timely and important subjects as Total Quality Environmental Management, the internationalization of standards, and the use of information technology are clearly presented and explored. Auditing for Environmental Quality Leadership will give managers, consultants, and environmental professionals authoritative guidance in this increasingly important field.

This book shows what sustainable development means for the business community and presents best practice approaches in environmental management from Japan, the USA, Brazil and seven European countries. It stresses that international competitiveness depends on the effective use of innovative management tools and has to be supported by an intelligent system of environmental regulation. Experts with many years of practical experience share their knowledge of how to achieve excellency in environmental performance, and present concrete steps towards a sustainable company.

This is a complete and concise guide to creating and managing a successful environmental audit program. It provides step-by-step guidance on setting up an audit program for nearly every major component of environmental concern, from air standards to workplace safety, and from effluent discharge to waste handling and disposal.

Essay from the year 2003 in the subject Business economics - Accounting and Taxes, grade: 1,0 (A), University of Glamorgan, course: International Accounting and Auditing, language: English, abstract: Businesses have become increasingly aware of environmental implications on their operations, products, and services. Environmental risks may have serious consequences for the prospects of a company, with particular financial consequences such as clean up costs or fines if a company fails to meet regulations. Environmental sensitive industries such as oil companies, waste management, or chemical industries are especially jeopardised. Various pressure groups, such as the public, investors, customers, employees, media, or business partners are interested in the environmental activities of a company. Greater attention is paid to the way the company manages and improves its environmental performance. In some countries, such as Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, there exists a complex and strong legislation regarding environmental behaviour. Companies are required to meet certain conditions to continue their operations and various standards have been developed in order to compensate for the lack of legislation in other countries. These standards are for example the British Standard for Environmental Management in the UK, ISO 14001 from the International Standards Organisation, or the European Union’s Eco- Management and Audit Scheme. These standards demand the establishment of an environmental management system, which is a framework of environmental objectives within which a company has to operate, and include the compliance of environmental regulations and statutes. Internal environmental audits have to be carried out to ensure the effectiveness of the environmental management system. These help to estimate the risk of environmental impacts, to prevent pollution, to allocate the source of pollution or to quantify liability accruals for known environmental issues. External environmental audits are required to validate reports being published and the information found during the internal audit. a far-reaching knowledge and sufficient competence. But some environmental issues are too complex and only professionals, such as engineers for example, can deal with them. The environmental audit becomes an essential and vital component of the environmental management profession. The demand for skilled auditors has been risen, but a professional body of environmental auditors to ensure the competence of an environmental auditor does not exist. Various approaches to tackle these circumstances have been made. ...

This new edition builds on the success of the first edition. It has been enhanced to embrace new topics including Due Dilgence, EHS Auditing, Process Safety, Auditing, and a chapter summarizing auditing with the relevant ISO standards. The rest of the book has been updated to fit with the guidance and requirements set out with the changes in the ISO standards. The goal of this book remains the same, to provide a "down to earth" guidance for managers and specialists in organizations who are committed to improving their safety, health and environmental performance, but are not sure where to start or do not wish to employ consultants to do this for them. They do it themselves using this book. Features Integrates the concepts of safety health and environmental auditing into a common approach of "loss prevention" Provides an audit protocol for 60 aspects of safety, health, and environmental management Presents a summary of the requirements of ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 to auditing Introduces the novel and unique concept of Auditing Convergence Offers a simple auditing software (The Plaudit II audit process) in an electronic program which no other book on this topic can offer