Environmental Self-Audits: Rewards and Risks, 1998 Nonwovens Conference Proceedings

In struggling to find the proper balance between the imperatives of environmental quality and public health, and the realities of finite budgets and international competition, governments and industries are reexamining market-oriented, business-centered methods of improving corporate environmental performance. Two methods that promise increased flexibility and innovation for industry in return for more efficient environmental protections include the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) 14000 program, and federal and state “audit protection” laws and policies.

IS0 14000 is a set of environmental management standards for all activities affecting the life cycle of a product. While support for IS0 14000 in Europe and the Pacific Rim is rather strong, differences in how IS0 140000’s audit and pollution prevention provisions are treated under U.S. and foreign laws could result in enormous differences in costs and risks to affected U.S. companies, and thus the system’s value is still hotly debated.

Environmental self-audits are not without their perils, especially in the United States, because companies that conduct audits can face legal consequences based on the data collected in an effort to improve their environmental compliance. Removing this barrier to improved environmental performance would ultimately benefit both industry and the environment. Consequently, there are efforts at the state level through “self-audit protection” laws to shield businesses that conduct self-audits from enforcement actions. Their effect, however, has been diminished by EPA’s position against sweeping “privilege’‘-type protection. At the same time, in the face of criticism that its policies offer a disincentive to self-audits, EPA has attempted to find some middle ground.