Environmental Inspection Services

Pollution now is an inevitable consequence of modern industrial technology,  rapid and convenient transport, and comfortable housing. But excessive pollution may interfere with man’s health and his mental,  social and economic wellbeing. Governments, all over the world,  have formulated laws and regulations to correct and cure past violations of good environmental practices. This act gave rise to Environmental Audit.

An environmental Audit is a type of evaluation intended to identify a company's environmental compliance against set standards and principles. In other words, it is an excellent means of identifying a company's environmental risks and liabilities ensuring legal compliance, and enhancing informed decision-making.

Environmental Auditing is basically an environmental management tool for measuring the effects of certain activities on the environment based on set rules and regulations.

Environmental Auditing has helped confirm to stakeholders that an organization is exercising effective environmental management and is genuinely pursuing a positive environmental agenda.

But then, why should environmental auditing be carried out? It is done when development is already in place and is used to check on existing practices, assessing the environmental effect of such activities. The benefits of Environmental Auditing cannot be over-emphasized.

It helps inform stakeholders and decision-makers on environment management and performance.

To assess and identify environmental fire risks and known sources of fire liabilities and causes of casualties.

Identify loopholes in environmental fire management procedures, and elucidate their control and mitigation measures before they can lead to incidents.

Environmental auditing is an effective instrument for assessing the environmental safety standards of an organization.

Stages of Environmental Audit.

There are Five (5) phases of Environmental auditing. They include:

• Scheduling the Audit: The process of Environmental Auditing starts with the organization's Environmental Management Representative (EMR), scheduling the audit at an appropriate risk-based frequency. When doing this, the Emergency Management Representative coordinates the timing to minimize disruptions to project operations. They also need to record the audit in each Environmental Management Plan (EMP) using the appropriate template from their Environmental Management Systems (EMS) manual.
• Planning the Audit: The next step is for the Environmental Management Representative, to establish and document the area to be audited, the reason and scope of auditing, and the contact names for the area. The EMR must also appoint a qualified lead Auditor or audit member if need be.
• Conducting the Audit: Here, all the relevant personnel in the Audit team, meet to discuss the scope of the audit, the proposed audit agenda, the audit objectives, any project personnel that needs to be contacted or interviewed, and a tentative time to hold the exit meeting.
• Developing The Audit Report: The Audit team has to prepare a report based on all the objective evidence collected during the audit. The report will be sent to the contractor. The final report must be distributed to the auditor, contractor, independent reviewer and environmental auditor, the state, and other relevant personnel.
• Audit Follow-up: The Environmental Management Representative follows up on closing out any remaining contract items by the contractor. It can be done separately and can be done whenever the next relevant audit takes place, depending on the finding significance.

 In conclusion, therefore, an Environmental audit is carried out to provide an indication to company management about how the environmental Organization system and equipment are performing. As a  result, the best  practicable means can  be  applied to  preserve air, water, soil, plant, and animal life from the adverse effect