ABSTRACT
The percentage of environmental performance audits as a proportion of total performance audits can indicate the relative importance of an Supreme Audit Institutions's (SAI's) environmental performance audit work. Performance audit criteria are generally developed in consultation with auditees. A majority of SAIs in their opinion indicate that 'audit criteria are based on a number of sources' that include both 'official guidance' 'if available' and their own 'research for best practice' in 'audit literature and standards', as well as 'standards set under international conventions'. Environmental matters feature in almost all SAIs strategic planning, suggesting that they have entered the mainstream of performance auditing at least in the strategic sense. The criteria for environmental performance audits are specified: explicitly by a little more than two-thirds of SAIs; and conveyed or understood implicitly by about one-third of SAIs. A larger proportion of developed SAIs than the developing SAIs specify audit criteria explicitly.
