Environmental Auditor

Companies are increasingly setting themselves goals to improve their sustainability performance across their own activities and throughout the value chain. Developing net zero strategies and plans is becoming particularly important. Environmental Auditors have a key role to play in assessing how effectively these and other sustainability initiatives are being implemented within their own companies or by suppliers. Many organisations rely on environmental or integrated management systems to deliver these goals, and management systems auditing provides confidence to stakeholders that these processes are producing the intended outcomes.

There is a growing expectation that companies will measure and report environmental performance as part of Environmental Social Governance (ESG]), and this is likely to create greater demand for Environmental Auditors in the future. Technology is also becoming more important, both for data collection and in allowing audits to be undertaken remotely.

An internal Auditor might only undertake or participate in audits occasionally, so a typical day will be very much focussed on the individual’s primary role.

In a larger organisation or in a certification body, one or more individuals will have overall responsibility for the audit programme, the arrangements for undertaking audits. This is a management function, and often these individuals do not participate directly in audits, but will ensure that audits are properly resourced, planned and undertaken.

Full-time Auditors (or those with extensive involvement in auditing) are likely to experience a wide range of audit situations and will undertake various auditing tasks, including planning, conducting, and reporting the findings of audits. Depending on the type of audit, they may also be required to support auditees in working to improve their environmental management processes and performance.

Environmental auditing is undertaken across all sectors, including public and private, primary, industrial, and service sectors.

Auditing skills can be transferable across sectors, but knowledge requirements can be quite different.