Environmental management systems auditing:Auditors' experiences in Australia

The last decade of the 20th century witnessed rapid growth in the adoption of various environmental management systems (EMS) within organisations. Environmental consultants and auditors play an intricate role in the  interpretation, implementation and certification of an EMS. This paper presents the experiences of eight leading auditors with respect to the adoption of EMS/ISO 14001 by Australian organisations. The benefits and issues relating to the auditing process are discussed.

Environmental management system auditing within Australasian companies

Reviews the literature on environmental management auditing, and surveys 132 ISO 14001 certified organizations in Australia and in New Zealand. Identifies the main reason for internal environmental audit, and the most frequent actions that result from the audit process, such as formation of a preventive plan. Looks at review procedures by top management, and the frequency of audit. Reveals the length of time an audit takes and the method of documentation adopted, by different industries. Notes six major findings and recommends sharing the findings of audits with employees and  suppliers so that improvements can be identified and implemented.

A case study on waste auditing in an ice cream factory

The management of the ice cream factory concerned in this study strongly felt the importance of undertaking a waste audit of its biggest waste generator, the ice cream plant. Ice cream wastewater constitutes as much as 74% of the total volume of wastewater discharged by the company to the central treatment plant of the Industrial Estate in which the factory is situated. Generation of ice cream wastes is attributed to the high consumptive use of water in the plant for washing and cleaning operations. As a result of waste auditing, methods were proposed to save water and to segregate the waste, and to modify the existing wastewater treatment system of the ice cream plant for better treatment efficiency.

Waste auditing and its applications in improving the dyeing industry environment

A case study on the application of cleaner production opportunities for waste minimization in dyeing industry is discussed in this paper which was conduced by Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (CDG) South East Asia Program Office in collaboration with several Thai institutions. A waste audit was conducted as a first step in a dyeing factory, which leads to propose water reuse and waste segregation in order to implement cleaner production for waste minimization. Further more lab-scale experiments were conducted to find optimum treatment methods for the waste streams.