Environmental auditing
An environmental audit is useful in assessing which particular areas of your business impact on the environment, and to what extent. An audit is also an effective risk management tool which enables you to check how effectively your business acts in accordance with environmental legislation.
An environmental audit assesses the nature and extent of harm to the environment caused by the activities, wastes or noise from your business. Use the audit as a tool to help you:
- assess how you can manage or influence the condition of the environment
- prioritise what actions you can take to reduce your impact on the environment
- demonstrate accountability to third parties such as government, customers and shareholders.
Environmental audits must be independent, objective, credible and transparent in order to be successful. Audits should also be regular and ongoing, and conducted against a benchmark or initial assessment, generally detailed in your environmental plan.
What to do...
- Find information on the components and benefits of environmental audits from the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.
- Read about environmental auditing in the Profiting from Environmental Improvement in Business information kit.
- Read the Climate change impacts & risk management - A guide for business and government.
- Download the Product Innovation: The Green Advantage publication from the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts website.
- Visit our Minimising your impact page.
- Find out more about environmental reporting by visiting our Reporting page.
- Visit our Environmental auditing in your state or territory page for more information.
This content is supplied to Flying Solo via business.gov.au,
the Australian Government's principal website for business information and resources.
