The Insti­tute of Geol­o­gy con­ducts envi­ron­men­tal audits of enter­pris­es and indi­vid­ual facil­i­ties to ver­i­fy com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion, assess the envi­ron­men­tal impact of busi­ness activ­i­ties, and iden­ti­fy envi­ron­men­tal risks. As a result, the client receives a sub­stan­ti­at­ed assess­ment of the facility’s actu­al con­di­tion, a list of iden­ti­fied non-com­pli­ances, and prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions for their elim­i­na­tion.

We con­duct inter­nal envi­ron­men­tal audits, com­pre­hen­sive reviews of envi­ron­men­tal doc­u­men­ta­tion, and assess­ments of an enterprise’s actu­al oper­a­tions. If required, we also pre­pare an expert envi­ron­men­tal audit opin­ion.

The audit may cov­er the entire enter­prise, an indi­vid­ual pro­duc­tion site, a tech­no­log­i­cal process, a struc­tur­al unit, a land plot, real estate, or anoth­er facil­i­ty whose oper­a­tion involves the use of nat­ur­al resources or an impact on the envi­ron­ment.

Envi­ron­men­tal audits are con­duct­ed in accor­dance with the Law of Ukraine “On Envi­ron­men­tal Audit” and with due regard to the envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion applic­a­ble to the activ­i­ties of the par­tic­u­lar enter­prise.

What is an environmental audit?

An envi­ron­men­tal audit is a doc­u­ment­ed, sys­tem­at­ic and inde­pen­dent assess­ment of an envi­ron­men­tal audit object. It includes col­lect­ing and objec­tive­ly eval­u­at­ing evi­dence to deter­mine whether the enterprise’s activ­i­ties com­ply with envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion and oth­er estab­lished cri­te­ria.

The audit exam­ines not only whether the required doc­u­ments are avail­able but also whether the enterprise’s actu­al oper­a­tions cor­re­spond to the infor­ma­tion spec­i­fied in per­mits, reports, agree­ments, tech­no­log­i­cal reg­u­la­tions, and oth­er doc­u­men­ta­tion.

The pri­ma­ry pur­pose of the audit is to deter­mine the actu­al lev­el of com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal require­ments, iden­ti­fy vio­la­tions and risks, and devel­op mea­sures required to bring the enterprise’s oper­a­tions into com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble leg­is­la­tion.

When is an environmental audit required?

An envi­ron­men­tal audit should be con­duct­ed not only after prob­lems arise but also as a pre­ven­tive mea­sure when prepar­ing for an inspec­tion, expand­ing busi­ness oper­a­tions, attract­ing invest­ment, or enter­ing into trans­ac­tions involv­ing prop­er­ty.

• before a sched­uled or unsched­uled inspec­tion by reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties;
• to con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment of com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion;
• before pur­chas­ing or sell­ing an enter­prise, pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty, or land plot;
• when attract­ing an investor, obtain­ing financ­ing, or assess­ing enter­prise assets;
• before recon­struc­tion, tech­ni­cal re-equip­ment, or expan­sion of pro­duc­tion;
• when chang­ing tech­no­log­i­cal process­es, raw mate­ri­als, equip­ment, or types of activ­i­ty;
• when prepar­ing to obtain, renew, or extend envi­ron­men­tal per­mits;
• when the own­er, man­age­ment, or per­sons respon­si­ble for envi­ron­men­tal safe­ty change;
• after receiv­ing orders, claims, or com­ments from reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties;
• fol­low­ing acci­dents, emer­gen­cies, envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion, or com­plaints;
• to iden­ti­fy envi­ron­men­tal risks and plan envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mea­sures.

Internal environmental audit

An inter­nal envi­ron­men­tal audit is ini­ti­at­ed by the own­er or man­age­ment of an enter­prise to assess its actu­al envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion. It enables the enter­prise to iden­ti­fy prob­lems before an offi­cial inspec­tion and elim­i­nate vio­la­tions in a time­ly man­ner.

The inter­nal audit cov­ers doc­u­men­ta­tion, per­mits, report­ing, pro­duc­tion process­es, waste man­age­ment, atmos­pher­ic emis­sions, water use, the con­di­tion of land plots, and the imple­men­ta­tion of envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mea­sures.

• obtain an objec­tive assess­ment of the enterprise’s envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion;
• iden­ti­fy miss­ing, expired, or incor­rect­ly pre­pared doc­u­ments;
• iden­ti­fy incon­sis­ten­cies between doc­u­men­ta­tion and actu­al oper­a­tions;
• assess the risks of admin­is­tra­tive and eco­nom­ic sanc­tions;
• pre­pare the enter­prise for an inspec­tion;
• iden­ti­fy pri­or­i­ty envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mea­sures;
• allo­cate respon­si­bil­i­ties among the enterprise’s offi­cers;
• devel­op an action plan for elim­i­nat­ing iden­ti­fied defi­cien­cies.

Voluntary and mandatory environmental audits

Under the Law of Ukraine “On Envi­ron­men­tal Audit,” an envi­ron­men­tal audit may be vol­un­tary or manda­to­ry.

A vol­un­tary envi­ron­men­tal audit is con­duct­ed at the ini­tia­tive of an own­er, man­ag­er, or anoth­er client inter­est­ed in obtain­ing inde­pen­dent infor­ma­tion about the envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion of an enter­prise or indi­vid­ual facil­i­ty.

A manda­to­ry envi­ron­men­tal audit is con­duct­ed in cas­es express­ly pro­vid­ed for by law. The require­ment to con­duct such an audit depends on the legal sta­tus of the facil­i­ty, the nature of the rel­e­vant busi­ness pro­ce­dures, and oth­er cir­cum­stances estab­lished by law.

Our spe­cial­ists analyse each par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion and deter­mine the appro­pri­ate type of audit, its objec­tives, scope of work, and the list of mate­ri­als required for the assess­ment.

What do we review during an environmental audit?

The scope of an envi­ron­men­tal audit is deter­mined indi­vid­u­al­ly, tak­ing into account the type of activ­i­ty, the scale of the enter­prise, its tech­no­log­i­cal process­es, and the nature of its envi­ron­men­tal impact.

• the avail­abil­i­ty and valid­i­ty of envi­ron­men­tal per­mits and doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• whether the enterprise’s actu­al oper­a­tions com­ply with its per­mits;
• com­pli­ance with the con­di­tions, restric­tions, and stan­dards estab­lished by per­mits;
• the accu­ra­cy of pri­ma­ry envi­ron­men­tal records;
• the com­plete­ness and accu­ra­cy of envi­ron­men­tal report­ing;
• the avail­abil­i­ty of inter­nal orders, instruc­tions, and appoint­ed respon­si­ble per­sons;
• com­pli­ance with orders and deci­sions issued by reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties;
• the imple­men­ta­tion of planned envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mea­sures;
• whether tech­no­log­i­cal process­es cor­re­spond to the declared envi­ron­men­tal char­ac­ter­is­tics;
• the avail­abil­i­ty of agree­ments, lab­o­ra­to­ry test results, and sup­port­ing mate­ri­als;
• the risks of air, water, soil, land, and ground­wa­ter pol­lu­tion;
• poten­tial sources of acci­den­tal or exces­sive envi­ron­men­tal impact.

Atmospheric emissions audit

When audit­ing activ­i­ties involv­ing atmos­pher­ic emis­sions, we analyse sta­tion­ary emis­sion sources, tech­no­log­i­cal equip­ment, exist­ing per­mits, emis­sions inven­to­ry mate­ri­als, and the results of oper­a­tional envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing.

• the avail­abil­i­ty of a per­mit for emis­sions of pol­lu­tants into the atmos­phere;
• whether the list­ed emis­sion sources cor­re­spond to the equip­ment actu­al­ly oper­at­ed by the enter­prise;
• whether the list­ed pol­lu­tants and estab­lished emis­sion lim­its cor­re­spond to actu­al oper­a­tions;
• the pres­ence of unac­count­ed-for or new­ly com­mis­sioned emis­sion sources;
• com­pli­ance with the con­di­tions of the emis­sions per­mit;
• the per­for­mance of oper­a­tional mon­i­tor­ing and lab­o­ra­to­ry mea­sure­ments;
• the main­te­nance of records and sub­mis­sion of the required reports;
• whether amend­ments to the per­mit­ting doc­u­men­ta­tion are required.

Waste management audit

When audit­ing a waste man­age­ment sys­tem, we review the entire waste flow—from the moment waste is gen­er­at­ed until it is trans­ferred to anoth­er enti­ty or sub­ject­ed to recov­ery or dis­pos­al oper­a­tions.

• iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of waste types and ver­i­fi­ca­tion of assigned waste codes;
• analy­sis of waste-gen­er­at­ing sources and tech­no­log­i­cal process­es;
• ver­i­fi­ca­tion of pri­ma­ry records con­cern­ing waste quan­ti­ties;
• assess­ment of tem­po­rary waste stor­age areas and accu­mu­la­tion con­di­tions;
• ver­i­fi­ca­tion of sep­a­rate waste col­lec­tion and labelling;
• analy­sis of con­tracts and doc­u­ments relat­ing to waste trans­fers;
• ver­i­fi­ca­tion of con­trac­tors to whom waste is trans­ferred;
• deter­mi­na­tion of whether per­mits or licences are required;
• analy­sis of waste man­age­ment plans and oth­er manda­to­ry doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• ver­i­fi­ca­tion of waste man­age­ment report­ing;
• assess­ment of land pol­lu­tion risks caused by improp­er waste stor­age.

Special water use and wastewater discharge audit

With regard to the pro­tec­tion and use of water resources, the audit exam­ines the legal­i­ty of water abstrac­tion, the use of water bod­ies, waste­water dis­charge, and the oper­a­tion of water sup­ply and waste­water sys­tems.

• spe­cial water use per­mits;
• actu­al water abstrac­tion and con­sump­tion vol­umes;
• water abstrac­tion and pol­lu­tant dis­charge lim­its;
• water sup­ply sources and waste­water dis­charge points;
• water con­sump­tion meter­ing sys­tems;
• lab­o­ra­to­ry mon­i­tor­ing results con­cern­ing water and waste­water qual­i­ty;
• agree­ments for cen­tralised water sup­ply and waste­water dis­pos­al;
• the oper­a­tion of waste­water treat­ment facil­i­ties;
• the main­te­nance of pri­ma­ry records and sub­mis­sion of reports;
• com­pli­ance with water pro­tec­tion restric­tions.

Audit of land plots and soil conditions

An envi­ron­men­tal audit of a land plot makes it pos­si­ble to assess its cur­rent con­di­tion, iden­ti­fy poten­tial sources of pol­lu­tion, and deter­mine risks asso­ci­at­ed with the pre­vi­ous or cur­rent use of the site.

• analyse the his­to­ry and nature of the land plot’s use;
• iden­ti­fy poten­tial sources of soil pol­lu­tion;
• inspect stor­age areas for raw mate­ri­als, fuels, chem­i­cals, and waste;
• assess the risks of leaks and the release of pol­lu­tants into the soil;
• ver­i­fy com­pli­ance with land pro­tec­tion require­ments;
• analyse avail­able lab­o­ra­to­ry test results;
• deter­mine whether addi­tion­al sam­pling and test­ing are required;
• pre­pare rec­om­men­da­tions for pol­lu­tion reme­di­a­tion or risk min­imi­sa­tion.

Environmental audit when purchasing an enterprise or facility

When pur­chas­ing an enter­prise, pro­duc­tion site, real estate, or land plot, envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems and the relat­ed finan­cial lia­bil­i­ties may be trans­ferred togeth­er with the asset.

An envi­ron­men­tal audit con­duct­ed before a trans­ac­tion helps iden­ti­fy:

• miss­ing per­mits and approvals;
• out­stand­ing orders issued by reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties;
• accu­mu­lat­ed waste and the expect­ed cost of its sub­se­quent removal;
• con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of land, soil, or ground­wa­ter;
• vio­la­tions of nat­ur­al resource use require­ments;
• the need to mod­ernise equip­ment or treat­ment facil­i­ties;
• incon­sis­ten­cies between actu­al oper­a­tions and issued per­mits;
• poten­tial expens­es required to elim­i­nate vio­la­tions and bring the facil­i­ty into com­pli­ance.

The client may use the audit results when assess­ing whether to pur­chase the facil­i­ty, deter­min­ing its actu­al val­ue, and nego­ti­at­ing the terms of the trans­ac­tion.

Assessment of environmental impact

An envi­ron­men­tal audit may include an analy­sis of the actu­al or poten­tial impact of an enterprise’s activ­i­ties on atmos­pher­ic air, water resources, land, soil, sub­soil, flo­ra, fau­na, and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal com­po­nents.

• the pri­ma­ry sources and fac­tors of envi­ron­men­tal impact;
• the scale and nature of the impact;
• exist­ing and poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal risks;
• the effec­tive­ness of imple­ment­ed envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion mea­sures;
• oppor­tu­ni­ties to reduce emis­sions, dis­charges, and waste gen­er­a­tion;
• mea­sures required to pre­vent acci­den­tal pol­lu­tion;
• the need to update doc­u­men­ta­tion or com­plete pro­ce­dures required by law.

Impor­tant: an envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment per­formed as part of an envi­ron­men­tal audit does not replace the statu­to­ry envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment pro­ce­dure where the pro­posed activ­i­ty falls with­in the scope of the Law of Ukraine “On Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment.”

How is an environmental audit conducted?

An envi­ron­men­tal audit con­sists of sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive stages. The exact pro­ce­dure and depth of assess­ment depend on the client’s objec­tives, the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the facil­i­ty, and the avail­abil­i­ty of source mate­ri­als.

• defin­ing the pur­pose, objec­tives, cri­te­ria, and scope of the audit;
• prepar­ing a list of required source doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• con­duct­ing a pre­lim­i­nary analy­sis of the enterprise’s activ­i­ties;
• review­ing per­mits, reports, agree­ments, and inter­nal doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• con­duct­ing a site vis­it where pro­vid­ed for by the audit pro­gramme;
• inspect­ing pro­duc­tion areas, equip­ment, and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion facil­i­ties;
• inter­view­ing the enterprise’s respon­si­ble employ­ees;
• com­par­ing doc­u­ment­ed infor­ma­tion with the actu­al con­di­tion of the facil­i­ty;
• assess­ing com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble leg­is­la­tion;
• iden­ti­fy­ing vio­la­tions, non-com­pli­ances, and envi­ron­men­tal risks;
• prepar­ing the audit report and rec­om­men­da­tions;
• prepar­ing an expert envi­ron­men­tal audit opin­ion, if required.

What documents are required for an environmental audit?

The list of required source doc­u­ments is pre­pared indi­vid­u­al­ly. It depends on the enterprise’s type of activ­i­ty, the nat­ur­al resources it uses, and the fac­tors affect­ing the envi­ron­ment.

• the enterprise’s incor­po­ra­tion and reg­is­tra­tion doc­u­ments;
• infor­ma­tion about its activ­i­ties and pro­duc­tion struc­ture;
• doc­u­ments relat­ing to land plots and real estate;
• tech­no­log­i­cal dia­grams, reg­u­la­tions, and descrip­tions of pro­duc­tion process­es;
• per­mits for emis­sions of pol­lu­tants into the atmos­phere;
• spe­cial water use per­mits;
• waste man­age­ment doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment con­clu­sions and relat­ed mate­ri­als;
• post-project mon­i­tor­ing mate­ri­als;
• envi­ron­men­tal and sta­tis­ti­cal reports;
• lab­o­ra­to­ry test and oper­a­tional mon­i­tor­ing results;
• agree­ments con­cern­ing water sup­ply, waste­water dis­pos­al, and waste trans­fers;
• inspec­tion reports, orders issued by reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties, and infor­ma­tion about their imple­men­ta­tion;
• envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion action plans;
• inter­nal orders, instruc­tions, and record-keep­ing logs;
• oth­er mate­ri­als depend­ing on the spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties of the enter­prise.

Expert environmental audit opinion

If required, an expert envi­ron­men­tal audit opin­ion con­cern­ing the enterprise’s com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion and the actu­al envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion of the facil­i­ty is pre­pared fol­low­ing the assess­ment.

The opin­ion is based on the reviewed doc­u­men­ta­tion, infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the client, site inspec­tion results, and oth­er evi­dence col­lect­ed dur­ing the audit.

• infor­ma­tion about the client and the envi­ron­men­tal audit object;
• the pur­pose, objec­tives, cri­te­ria, and scope of the audit;
• a list of the reviewed doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• a descrip­tion of the enterprise’s activ­i­ties and pri­ma­ry envi­ron­men­tal impacts;
• an assess­ment of com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion;
• a list of iden­ti­fied non-com­pli­ances;
• an assess­ment of envi­ron­men­tal and reg­u­la­to­ry risks;
• con­clu­sions regard­ing the actu­al con­di­tion of the facil­i­ty;
• rec­om­men­da­tions and a list of required mea­sures;
• pri­or­i­ties for elim­i­nat­ing iden­ti­fied defi­cien­cies.

What does the client receive?

The result of the envi­ron­men­tal audit is a sys­tem­at­ic assess­ment of the enterprise’s com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal require­ments and a clear list of fur­ther actions.

• an envi­ron­men­tal audit report;
• an assess­ment of the facility’s actu­al envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion;
• a list of iden­ti­fied vio­la­tions and non-com­pli­ances;
• infor­ma­tion about miss­ing or out­dat­ed doc­u­ments;
• an assess­ment of poten­tial envi­ron­men­tal and legal risks;
• rec­om­men­da­tions for elim­i­nat­ing iden­ti­fied defi­cien­cies;
• a plan of pri­or­i­ty and long-term mea­sures;
• an expert envi­ron­men­tal audit opin­ion, if required;
• rec­om­men­da­tions con­cern­ing envi­ron­men­tal per­mits and improve­ment of the envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment sys­tem.

Further support following the audit

The Insti­tute of Geol­o­gy does not mere­ly iden­ti­fy vio­la­tions. Fol­low­ing the audit, we can pro­vide fur­ther sup­port to the enter­prise and assist with imple­ment­ing the rec­om­mend­ed mea­sures.

• prepa­ra­tion or updat­ing of envi­ron­men­tal doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• obtain­ing per­mits for emis­sions of pol­lu­tants into the atmos­phere;
• prepar­ing doc­u­ments for spe­cial water use per­mits;
• prepar­ing waste man­age­ment doc­u­men­ta­tion;
• obtain­ing waste man­age­ment per­mits and licences;
• sup­port through­out the envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment pro­ce­dure;
• arrang­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry test­ing and envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing;
• prepar­ing inter­nal orders, instruc­tions, and record-keep­ing forms;
• pro­vid­ing advi­so­ry sup­port for elim­i­nat­ing iden­ti­fied non-com­pli­ances.

Order an environmental audit

If you need to ver­i­fy com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion, assess the envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tion of an enter­prise, or iden­ti­fy risks before pur­chas­ing a facil­i­ty, the Insti­tute of Geol­o­gy will con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive envi­ron­men­tal audit and pre­pare prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions.

Con­tact the Insti­tute of Geology—we will con­duct an envi­ron­men­tal audit, iden­ti­fy exist­ing risks, and help bring your enterprise’s oper­a­tions into com­pli­ance with envi­ron­men­tal require­ments.