Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ENVIROMENTAL AUDITING
UNIT No FOUR
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ENVIROMENTAL AUDITING
INTRODUCTION.
Global warming, the potential impact of ecological accidents as well as the hysteria
surrounding events such as sea water pollution, Lake Victoria contamination, Mad Cow
disease underlie society's awareness and concern about the quality of the environment,
especially, corporations' role and responsibility in that regard. (For instances, does any
one has ever perform an environmental evaluation in Chwaka before and after
establishing this ZIFA. Increasing number of plastic bags around the village is one of the
best explainable example of environmental distractions) from this concern, resulted in a
significant tightening of environmental legislation in most Western countries, with
accounting regulators also getting involved through several initiatives that mandate, or
encourage, firms to disclose environmental efforts, costs and achievements in their
financial statement. Despite of its important, it is however, not given much attention in
developing counties like Tanzania regardless of its impact.
In principle, environmental auditing can be done by any person from ranges of discipline;
it can be accountant, scientist, engineers external or internal auditors or any one but most
of time it is done by multidisciplinary team so as to avoid a too strong focus on
procedures.
As the matter of facts, no one can differentiate between environmental audits from pure
financial audit. i.e. a Financial audit, With exception to environmental auditing being
largely unregulated, the general approach to both types of audits is similar. Both audits
place an emphasis on the evaluation of control systems. It is highly recommended to
include External auditors to the environmental process regardless; they are not belonging
to the organization.
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DEFINITIONS
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negative and lower their estimation of the firm's value. Therefore, to avoid an unjustified
under-valuation, managers should be encouraged to voluntarily reveal all relevant
information. However, in practice, this is not the case,
Various explanations for this lack of full disclosure have been put forward. Investors
cannot determine whether managers have information; there will be no information
disclosure equilibrium. In such circumstances, managers are not motivated to reveal all
the information they have. It is however, that firms may retain some information
deliberately if its disclosure can cause a decrease in cash flows. Such costs are deemed to
be proprietary as outside parties may rely on a firm's proprietary information to inflict
damage or costs upon it (e.g., labor unions and competitors). Therefore, managers should
disclose only favorable information. Hence, investors do not know whether information
is being withheld because it is negative or because the costs likely to be incurred
following its disclosure are more important than the benefits of disclosure. In that
context, firms can withhold adverse information without its stock market value being
affected.
2. External sources of disclosure.
Rather than restricting themselves to firms' voluntary disclosure, investors can also fill
their information needs proactively by relying on financial analysts or by consulting
financial newspapers or other media. In addition, investors can also rely on other reliable
information sources, which scope and content are not under firms' control, e.g.,
disclosures mandated by legislators or regulators. However, since this approach requires
an investment of time, not all investors will resort to it, which can lead to an imbalance of
knowledge between investors. This imbalance can result in higher transaction costs,
lower trading volumes and fewer participants in the capital market. One of the
implications of this is that uninformed investors do not remain passive in the face of the
advantage held by informed investors
3. Mandatory corporate disclosure.
Here a firm is forced by some legislation to disclose its environment information to both
insiders and outsiders. Under this point, if a firm failed to disclose relevant information to
public, it will be held responsible, but this is only working in those countries whereby
environmental audit is compulsory.
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cooperation can consist of projects that enhance the spreading of information and
experience, thus resulting in savings of time and resources.
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
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The planning of this type of audit is just as important an activity as planning a financial
audit. For example, it is essential that the correct people are selected to carry out the
audit. The actual work carried out will most probably include compliance as well as
substantive testing, and the auditor will be required to produce a report on the work
carried out. The types of activities involved at each of these three essential stages are:
Planning stage;
Identify the audit objectives (for example, is the purpose to check
compliance with management environmental control procedures, or to
identify inefficiencies in those procedures?)
Define the scope of audit (the whole company or only one specific sit?)
Determine who is the audience for the environmental audit (or example,
management, regulatory authorities, or the public)
Obtain all relevant background information
Determine the audit approach.
Ascertain, evaluate and document the relevant environmental systems and
controls operating.
Prepare a detailed audit programme.
Select the audit team on the basis of skills and experience.
An audit cannot be designed as a ready-made package to suit all circumstances. This
framework will help you in researching and developing an audit to suit your particular
needs.
* Identify the situation, or place, in which you will audit, e.g. the school grounds, the
home kitchen, the office.
* Select the area/s or issue/s that you will audit, e.g. waste management, energy, water or
biodiversity
* Identify key questions to focus your investigation within each issue, e.g. how do we
attempt to reduce and reuse products, and recycle waste?
* For each key question identify additional questions to investigate the issue in more
detail. The Enviro Facts listed below will provide background information to help you
identify appropriate and meaningful questions. In developing these questions it is useful
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to consider the impacts of using a resource in your particular situation, and both before,
and after your situation, for example:
1. How much paper is used in the school?
2. What are the environmental effects of afforestation and paper mills?
3. What are the environmental effects of the waste paper?
* Work out remedial action, i.e. what can you do to improve the way in which resources
are used.
Issue Question Additional Enviro Facts to
questions assist
1. WASTE How do we attempt to Organic material, glass, War on waste; Pollution;
reduce and reuse paper and card, plastic, Marine pollution; Toxic
products, and recycle metals, liquids (e.g. toxic waste.
waste? wastes, oil).
2.ENERGY How do we attempt to Heaters, lights, geysers, Global warming; Energy
reduce the amount of stoves, transport options; Energy and the
energy used? environment;
Deforestation;
Desertification.
3. WATER How do we attempt to Hostel, kitchen, Precious water; Wetlands;
reduce the amount of bathrooms, school River catchments;
water used? grounds or gardens. Estuaries; Marine
Pollution, riparian pollution.
vegetation, erosion.
4.BIODIVERSITY How do we attempt to Poisons used to kill pests, Gardening for wildlife;
increase biodiversity the variety of habitats in Permaculture; Poisons in
in the grounds and the school grounds, the home and garden; Soil;
buildings? encouraging animals to Soil erosion; Plant a tree
come into the grounds, today; Indigenous, alien
use of indigenous plants and invasive; Traditional
medicine
Audit test:
Select the items to be tested.
Carry out detailed compliance and /or substantive testing.
Concluding.
Post-audit research and verification of the findings from the site visit.
Analysis of audit findings, identifying any deficiencies, discrepancies and
good performance practices.
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Preparation of an audit report, outlining the objective and scope of the audit,
the methods employed a summary of the results, and an indication of action
areas.
Preparing an EA Report is a skilled task and it is unlikely that a project operator will be
able to prepare such a report to the standards required by the Environment Authority
without professional consultancy advice.
Form and Content of the EA Report
The form and content of an EA Report, as described below,
Form of the EA Report
The EA Report needs to communicate the relevant information clearly and concisely and
should therefore:
1. Be presented to make information accessible to the non-specialist, avoiding
technical terminology where possible.
2. Have information presented in summary tables and use good quality maps, charts,
Diagrams and other visual aids wherever possible.
3. Be clearly laid out with a clear table of contents, to allow the reader to find and
assimilate information easily and quickly.
4. Present information without bias and discuss issues with the emphasis appropriate
to their importance as in the overall context of the Environmental Audit.
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1. Introduction
The objectives and scope of the Environmental Audit.
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HELPFUL GUIDELINES
Get support! Best results are achieved when the audit has wide support, and the changes
it recommends are backed by everyone involved. Get permission for the audit from the
relevant authorities; involve as many people as possible and share the results of the audit
widely.
Don't be disappointed: Most answers to the questions will probably be "No, we don't do
this" or "No, we haven't, not yet" - the purpose of auditing is to identify where
improvements can occur, not to pass or fail the institution concerned! If a great deal of
work needs to be done, don't be daunted. Everything cannot change overnight, and
change must be manageable, so pace yourself. The audit may lead to a two month, six
month, one year or five year plan
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Review questions.
a) What is an environmental auditing? (5 marks)
b) What are the advantages and disadvantages of carrying out an environmental
auditing? (15 marks)
c) Just mention the basic factors influencing the environmental auditing. (10 marks)
(total marks=30) Thursday 17th nov. 2005 test no. one
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References:
1. Auditing and practice (second edition) by John Dunn.
2. Advanced auditing and investigation by F.M.H.Mhilu (NBAA study manual)
3. Auditing theory and practice by Hermanson, Loeb, Saada, and Strawser.
4. Auditing simplified by N.S. Saleemi
5. Auditing Questions and answers by Paul N. Manss’she.
6. Several internet sources
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