The task of integrating into the system of civilized international relations in the field of environmental protection, environmental safety, increasing substantive requirements for legislation, highlights the need to develop a fundamentally new industry in auditing - environmental auditing, which, as international experience shows, is becoming an effective tool for ensuring development.
It should be noted that activities related to environmental auditing should include the provision of a wide range of consulting audit services that take into account internal audit standards. Such a yet new phenomenon, such as environmental auditing, is also an important tool for solving investment issues, because it increases the attractiveness for enterprises in the real sector, and this, in turn, is a fundamental factor in national security.
Prospects for the development of the market for eco-audit services to a large extent depend on the availability of a developed regulatory framework containing national audit standards, which is just beginning to take shape. At present, there are no well-developed scientific and methodological foundations of environmental radiation and a generally accepted conceptual and terminological apparatus that takes into account international rules and standards for the implementation of competent environmental auditing.
From a legal point of view, a mandatory environmental audit should be carried out in any case in the following situations:
- implementation of the bankruptcy procedure of the enterprise;
- preparation of investment projects;
- implementation of environmental insurance procedures;
- execution of instructions from environmental or other state authorities
- implementation of the decision of the state environmental review.
A proactive audit in the field of environmental activities is carried out by decision of the enterprise itself or another business entity.
External audit is carried out by a third-party audit firm, and internal - by employees (full-time auditors) of the enterprise.
A real environmental audit is designed to assess the actual state of the enterprise as the nature of the user and as an environmental pollutant.
A prospective environmental audit is aimed at developing and providing recommendations in the field of improving the activities of the audited enterprise in the field of environmental management.
An environmental audit can be informational, preventative and punitive, and for each of these types it is necessary to develop unique audit standards.
An information audit is aimed at collecting and summarizing environmental information and its subsequent transmission to relevant interested users (to government bodies, citizens, investors, creditors) with a view to making decisions.
A preventive audit allows you to prevent or minimize possible negative consequences, the potential occurrence of which is determined by the failure to perform the necessary environmental protection works, as well as financial and economic projects that have not passed technical environmental control.
A punitive audit consists of a variety of sanctions, including the application of coercive measures against violators who are legally convicted of failure to fulfill obligations to protect nature and its individual objects.
The main difference of environmental audit is that if it is carried out, significant costs of a wide variety of resources are required for collecting, analyzing and documenting a large amount of operational information on the activities of enterprises, which is always accompanied by significant time and effort, since most domestic enterprises cannot provide enough complete, clear and reliable formation and provision of such environmental information. That is why rules and standards of auditing are needed as an objective condition for the development of environmental legislation.
A distinctive feature is the lack of strictly regulated and established procedures and standards for the implementation of audit programs.
It should be recognized that audit standards in the field of environmental management are becoming a necessary resource for ensuring the environmental well-being of society.