AUDITING

Logistics environmental audits

[Name of instructor]

Logistics environmental audits

Task 1

Environmental Audit is often the primary analysis to identify opportunities for the use of low-waste production and use of the latest technologies. The results of this listening may serve as a starting point for an environmental management system in the enterprise. Audit of waste can also initiate a plan of action for the protection of the environment for projects involving the gradual development of environmental measures.

Relevant legislations

The relevant legislations that needs to be complied by a logistics company are

Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program

National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP): air toxics regulations.

Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engines (RICE), including area sources

Border Compliance Assistance Information about transporting solid and hazardous wastes from Mexico into the United States

Transportation Sector Compliance.

Practices that need to be audited

There are 12 different categories of environmental aspects in a logistics company that needs to be audited. These are:

Raw materials (ingredients and amounts of raw materials, as well as suppliers and trade names). 

Supporting materials (materials that are used as additives (additive) in the production process for waste water treatment, etc).

Fuels (all fuels and oils used in the enterprise).

Electricity (the total consumption of electricity, the amount and type of electricity meters).

Water (consumption, presence and type of meters).

Air emissions (any polluting emissions, indicating whether they are formed during the manufacturing process or as a result of ventilation, by the company, the composition and emissions, the number of tail pipes at the plant, emission control devices).

Wastewater (all points wastewater generated in the production process, and from bathrooms and showers, composition and volume, availability and composition of treatment facilities).

Waste (recorded separately all existing waste - production, domestic, hazardous, indicate the available space in landfills, waste description of the methods and sampling procedures); 

. Scents (records all odours generated from the enterprise).

. Noise (the most significant sources of noise indicating the equipment, from which the noise).

. Risks (all major risks, such as the storage of hazardous waste, joint storage of incompatible chemicals and all the storage space on the premises).

. Failures in the company (directly failures and their consequences, the kind of pollutants and their volume.

Implications of non-conformance

If a non-compliance is observed on the management side and the auditor considers it as a serious breach of the law under local or international environmental regulations, the auditor should responds and convey it to the concerned authorities, these authorities will includes the regulatory authority and the management of the company, if the auditor feels that breach is of such significance that cases a significant harm to the environment then the auditor should stop the audit.

The next step that the auditor is likely to take is to inform the representative of the situation. The auditor should then try to collect appropriate and sufficient evidence in an admissible form for a potential prosecution. The non-compliance should be evaluated against the audit evidence obtained and the prevailing environmental regiulation. Non-compliance may be assessed to determine the significance of its actual or potential impact on the environment.

Technical requirements required

Environmental audit program is developed with the technical specifications of the ...