ABSTRACT
Environmental auditing is not a particularly new discipline; however its popularity as a means to assessing environmental performance has recently increased substantially. Indeed, the first environmental audits can be traced back to the US, where corporations adopted this methodology in response to their domestic liability laws. Audits are undertaken at regular intervals to assess the environmental performance of the company in relation to the companys stated objectives and environmental policy. The Environmental Protection Act in the UK requires organizations to reduce emissions to the atmosphere and discharges to rivers and sewers using methods which present the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) and the Best Available Techniques Not Exceeding Excessive Cost (BATNEEC). At British Petroleum (BP) audits have been conducted which are neither site, organization nor product specific. An environmental audit must not be considered in isolation, but as an integral part of an environmental management system, which in turn should be integrated with the other systems in the organization.
