Environmental audit

It is generally accepted that environmental auditing in the world originated at the turn of the 1970s and 80s. In particular, the EEC directive on environmental auditing was adopted in 1982, in 1984 the US Environmental Protection Agency developed the concept of environmental auditing by federal agencies. The first environmental audit was registered in the Russian Empire in 1892. The Mandatory Rules “On the Procedure for Opening and Maintaining Chemical Plants” were, in fact, the initial document for conducting an environmental audit. In the Russian Federation, environmental audit has been applied since 1993. In 1998, a number of legal acts of the State Committee for Ecology in the field of environmental audit were adopted, including those that established the rules for their certification . Today in the Russian Federation, several non-profit organizations perform the certification function of eco-auditors.

• Rationale for environmental policies and strategies,
• Analysis and assessment of environmental aspects of business and other projects,
• Analysis and assessment of regulatory acts in the field of environmental protection,
• Justification and initiation of environmental activities,
• Identification of environmental problems of industries and territories.

It is subdivided into obligatory and proactive environmental audit. In this framework, the following types may occur ^[1] :

• Determination of compliance of a business entity with environmental requirements,
• Assessment of the effectiveness of the environmental management system,
• Environmental safety assessment of the raw materials, equipment, technologies used,
• Assessment of economic damage from pollution,
• Waste hazard assessment,
• Determining the rationality of nature management in a particular territory,
• Assessment of energy consumption and suggestion of ways to reduce it,
• Determination of greenhouse gas emissions and development of measures to reduce them,
• Environmental risk assessment as a result of industrial accidents and natural processes,
• Identification of environmental problems and development of measures to solve them,
• The rationale for the adopted regulatory acts on environmental safety.

• Federal Law of the Russian Federation of January 10, 2002 N 7-ФЗ "On Environmental Protection"
• Federal Law of the Russian Federation dated December 30, 2008 N 307-ФЗ “On Auditing Activities”