Environmental auditing

An environmental audit is a systematic examination of how a business operation affects the environment. It will include all emissions to air, land, and water and cover the legal constraints, the effect on community, the landscape, and the ecology. Products will be considered, as well as processes. 

When applied at the design stage of a new development it is more correctly called an environmental impact assessment. 

Identify environmental problems associated with manufacturing process and the use of the products, before they become liabilities. 

To be seen to be concerned with environmental questions important for public relations. 

Environmental auditing is discussed by Grayson (1992). His booklet is a good source of references for commentary on the subject, and to government bulletins. 

Environmental auditing can cover a wide range of objectives. The approach can focus on how well a manufacturing facility is complying with the various environmental regulations, such as the Clean Air Act Amendments (C AAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), various aspects ofthe Occupational Safety andHealth Act (OSHA), and can also cover property acquisition. It can also cover the various State regulations, for instance, in New Jersey an environmental audit can cover the Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act (TCPA), the Spill Act, and the State 

Permit Compliance. If desired, it can also cover waste minimization and pollution prevention. 

The environmental audit offers a comprehensive assessment of a facility s compliance with applicable federal, state and local regulations. It also can identify problems before the local or state regulator can be made aware of them and allows time to correct the inadequacies. 

Other advantages of the environmental audit is to allow time to properly assess the problem, plan its solution and allow for funding the capital cost required. There are potential problems in having an environmental audit performed. The results of recent court decisions indicate that the environmental audit results may not be able to be kept in confidence and furthermore, they may be used as evidence of noncompliance in civil or criminal court actions. It is conceivable that an audit can increase the potential liabilities. Consequently, management should be prepared to commit to satisfy any negative findings before the audit is undertaken. 

Environmental auditing consultants have developed forms for collecting/developing information on various aspects of the site. The more important of these will include the following  

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In addition to these paper tools, there are several commercially available health, safety, and environmental audit software programs that can be customized to meet specific needs. 

Providing data for internal eompany environmental audits. 

An environmental audit is a systematie, doeumented, periodie and objeetive evaluation of how well environmental organization, management and equipment are performing. The aim is to help safeguard the environment by ... 

Step 1.6 Review Documentation. Collate and review all existing documentation and information regarding the process. Regional or plant surveys may have been undertaken, environmental audits may have been conducted, safety audit findings may be available these could yield useful information indicating the areas for concern, and will show gaps where no data are available. 

Providing data for internal company environmental audits. 

Energy consumption and material balances for environmental auditing ... 

The ISO has also produced a set of quality standards specifically for environmental management. This is the ISO 14000 series. The areas addressed by ISO 14000 are Environmental Management Systems, Environmental Performance Evaluations, Environmental Auditing, Life Cycle Assessment, and Environmental Labeling. 

Slafl" Solvenl Sorts Oiil Plastics, C.hem. Eng. Progress, 22 (November 1091). Strauss. W The Haze Around Environmental Audits, Technology/ Review (MIT),... 

Appendix 11.1 Conclusions from environmental audit inspections... 

Table 11A.1 Examples of management indicators for conclusions of environmental audits...

During environmental audit inspections residues may be observed. The predicted dominant micro-organisms are those in the left-hand column of Table 11A.2. 

The third advantage, according to Ayres, is the possibility to accomplish year-to-year environmental auditing for large firms, industries, or even nations. The current approach is highly unsatisfactory, with a built-in incompetence to compare flows of different nature "apples" and "oranges." Exergy takes away this important imperfection. 

Carter, R.W. and O Reilly, P. (1999) A rapid appraisal methodology for environmental auditing. Journal of Tourism Studies 10 (2), 14-22. 

Ding, P. (2000) Environmental auditing. In J. Jafari (ed.) Encyclopedia of Tourism (pp. 195-196). London Routledge. 

Librizzi WJ (1990) Hazardous waste treatment processes Including environmental audits and waste reduction. Task Force on Hazardous Waste Treatment, Water Pollution Control Federation, Philadelphia, PA... 

Grant, C. D. (1979) Energy Conservation in the Chemical and Petroleum Industries (IChemE/Godwin). Grayson, L. (ed.) (1992) Environmental Auditing (Technical Communications, UK). 

Mercury is one of a number of toxic heavy metals that occur in trace amounts in fossil fuels, particularly coal, and are also present in waste materials. During the combustion of fuels or wastes in power plants and utility boilers, these metals can be released to the atmosphere unless remedial action is taken. Emissions from municipal waste incinerators can substantially add to the environmental audit of heavy metals, since domestic and industrial waste often contains many sources of heavy metals. Mercury vapor is particularly difficult to capture from combustion gas streams due to its volatility. Some processes under study for the removal of mercury from flue gas streams are based upon the injection of finely ground activated carbon. The efficiency of mercury sorption depends upon the mercury speciation and the gas temperature. The capture of elemental mercury can be enhanced by impregnating the activated carbon with sulfur, with the formation of less volatile mercuric sulfide [37] this technique has been applied to the removal of mercury from natural gas streams. One of the principal difficulties in removing Hg from flue gas streams is that the extent of adsorption is very low at the temperatures typically encountered, and it is often impractical to consider cooling these large volumes of gas. 

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