Environmental Audit | Water Audit | Hazardous Waste Audit

Audit Services and Consulting

Audit means to evaluate something as per the procedure and the standards defined under the regulatory compliances. Audit can be of any aspect, it may be environmental audit, performance audit, financial audit, water audit etc.
It is an assessment tool to examine the process or activity or services of any organization on the basis of different international and national criteria’s and standards.
However the main objective of any kind of audit is to assess and evaluate a system against a particular criteria in order to achieve something or the intended outcomes.
Depending on the intended outcome, the industry plans for the different types of audit that may be undertaken taking into account the Geographical location of the unit, process, operation or activity and frequency of the audit period.
The entire audit process follows a common four step process as far as any organization’s audit objective is concerned, that is the PDCA cycle.
Plan>Do>Check>Act, the audit cycle repeats itself and the intended outcomes are achieved for the organisation.
As far as Environmental evaluations are concerned, there are different aspects that are considered to define the type of audit which an industry should adhere to. The Water and wastewater Audit, Hazardous waste audit, and Electronic waste audit that leads to the overall Environmental audit for the industrial setup must follow.

Water audit is the measurement and quantification of the total water usage by the industries in the process and operational aspects as far as from the raw material consumption to product manufacturing is concerned.
Taking into account the Industrial pollution indexing, most of the industries use water directly or indirectly into their day to day operations and processes.
The main objective of the water audit is to identify and assess the total water withdrawal of the groundwater, to measure how much water is being utilized in the process and domestic wastewater treatment through the water treatment technologies, reuse and recycle the treated water in house to the maximum extent.
Conducting a water audit comprises calculating water balance, water use and identifying and promoting the ways to water saving technologies.

It involves initial water survey and detailed water audit plan.
Initial water survey is conducted in the industry to gather the information about the nature of business, plant activities, operational aspects, Water consumption, treatment and final discharge.
Apart from it, industry is also required to supply the total water consumption details including water cess or water billing status.
The site visit is conducted to collect the information and data with regards to the water consumption, A detailed water audit report is prepared as following
Discussion with facility manager and on site personnel
Water technology and system analysis
Collect the water data to prepare the water map
Quantification of water map
Monitoring of the water recording devices such as flow meters
Identification of water inefficient technologies and parallel systems
Device a layout to reduce the water usage and maximise the recycle and reduce of water

A water audit report should have the following aspects:

The significance of the environmental audit had first been recognised and notified under the provisions of Environment Protection Act, 1986 by the Ministry of Environment of Forests vide notification No. GSR 329(E) on 13 March, 1992.
As per the notification, every person or an industry, operation or process requiring consent under section 25 of the water (prevention and control of pollution) Act. 1974 Section 25 refers to no industry, process, project, factory, or any other unit or set up shall establish or operate in any manner without taking prior permission or consent from the State Pollution Control Board that is likely to generate and discharge the effluent or sewage or wastewater into a stream or well or sewer, or on land. and under section 21 of the Air (prevention and control of pollution) Act, 1981 No person will without the prior consent of the State Pollution Board, establish or operate any industrial unit or set up or factory plant in an air pollution control area. or authorisation under the provisions of Hazardous wastes (Management and Handling) rules of 1989 are required to submit the environment audit report every year to the State Pollution Control Board.
The name of the Environment Audit report was renamed as environmental statement in 1993.

The primary objective of the Environmental Audit is to test and determine the Environmental performance of the system in terms of conformity, effectiveness and efficiency.
A system may be defined as project activities, production processes and products or any other industrial compliance aspects that are upto the procedures of the management system.
To evaluate the organisation’s capabilities to ensure the legal, technical, financial performance and other standard requirements for which the organisation is committed to fulfil.
To continual improvement of the Environmental compliances and obligation
Continual assessment and improvement of the environment management system

Manufacturing industrial setup which potentially generates the waste during the production process of a product could be hazardous in nature may likely create the environmental problems and risks if not disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.
These hazardous waste pose a great threat to the social and biological environment when not handled as per the defined rules and regulations by the Ministry of Environment and Forest.
Industries or organisations need to check and audit the production process regularly, shifting on to the latest environmental technologies in order to mitigate the generation of hazardous waste and the potential hazardous impacts.

Generation and collection of adequate environmental information for the potential hazard and risks that are likely to be caused by hazardous waste
Identify and Assess the effectiveness of Environmental Management Systems, Practices, Codes and Procedures.
Ensuring compliance, not only with laws, regulations and standards, but also with company policies as well as.
Enabling anticipation of environmental problems and risks and associated planned responses.
Achieving resources optimization and continual improved process performance.

Every producer, Manufacturer, Importers, Brand Owners, Dismantles, Refurbishers and Recyclers of the E-waste that are primarily responsible to generate the electronic waste from the production and operational process need to identify the environmental hazards, and risks associated with the generation of waste.
These organisations have to have a methodology adopted ensuring environmental compliances as per the provisions of E-waste management Rules 2016.
Industries or organisations must adopt the check and audit cycle of the production process once in a year, transitioning from old to the latest E-waste management technologies so that generation of E-waste at the source can be minimised whereas collection back system of the recycled material can be maximised. And by adopting this methodology, industries can mitigate the generation of E waste by far and reduce the potential hazardous impacts.