CTI has assisted hundreds of companies in achieving regulatory compliance by conducting Environmental Compliance Audits. Environmental Compliance Audits are used to evaluate a facility’s compliance with all local, state, and federal regulatory agencies.
These audits consist of a comprehensive Desktop Review and an in-depth Facility Inspection.. The Desktop Review includes a review of all permits and regulatory requirements applicable to the facility, a breakdown summary of these requirements, and an evaluation of all required programs, training, reporting obligations, and recordkeeping. The facility inspections determine whether the current permit conditions are being maintained. These systematic inspections carefully examine the condition of the site, the facility’s current industrial activities, waste streams, hazardous material storage and usage, and best management practices. This combination approach provides many benefits for the facility and is the optimal method for performing compliance gap analyses to identify any areas of potential liability and areas of improvement.
The Desktop Review offers the following benefits:
- Consolidates all required permits and regulatory requirements applicable to the facility.
- Increases the ease with which compliance can be achieved and ensures that records are organized.
- Identifies opportunities for optimizing the efficiency of recordkeeping at the facility.
- Encourages employees to maintain good records by ensuring that recordkeeping is kept as simplistic and straightforward as possible.
- Provides the facility with greater insight and understanding of the specific agencies and laws that regulate their business with respect to environmental regulation.
- Cultivates the knowledge of what a facility can and cannot do from an environmental perspective.
The Facility Inspection offers the following benefits:
- Permitting determinations can be conducted on the facility’s current activities.
- Allows facilities to address a permit that has been outgrown through the installation of additional equipment or an increase in production.
- Allows facilities to address a permit that they no longer need.
- Improvement of facility procedures from both an environmental and efficiency perspective.
- Procedural innovation which increases production and can provide for greater protection against environmental impact.
- Thorough review of waste generation at the facility.
- Identifies opportunities for waste minimization or recycling.
- Eliminates the potential for waste management violations which are some of the most common and involve the highest fines.
The deliverable of the Environmental Compliance Audit is a comprehensive report which lists all of the compliance gaps identified during the inspection. These issues are ranked based on priority, which provides the facility a guide to which a timeline to address any issues and come up with a corrective action plan, based on the associated risk of an identified concern. The report also offers recommended corrective actions which depend on the urgency with which an issue needs to be addressed and the specific solution which is most appealing to the facility. The main objective of the audit is compliance, but this tailored solution-based approach to the audit is vital as facilities have widely ranging budgets and comfort levels when it comes to addressing environmental issues.
The Environmental Compliance Audit can also be the first step towards employment of an Environmental Management System (EMS). The audit can provide the main framework of regulatory requirements that the facility must follow in order to maintain compliance, and it can also provide a baseline analysis of facility environmental and safety performance that can be used to measure a facility’s compliance status over time. Performance indicators are key to proper development as continuous improvement is required for Management System certification.
Conversion Technology Inc. (CTI) has decades of experience conducting Environmental Compliance Audits. Whether your facility is preparing for a regulatory inspection, concerned about compliance status, or proactively seeking management system improvement, the Environmental Compliance Audit can serve as the perfect tool for bring your facility into compliance and keep it there. CTI recommends that, at a minimum, an audit should be conducted annually. If you believe your facility would benefit from an audit, CTI would be happy to utilize its knowledge of the latest regulatory developments to assist your facility in maintaining total compliance. For more information on Environmental Compliance Audits, please contact us at (770) 263-6330 or cti@conversiontechnology.com.
Read our article “The Necessity of Environmental and Safety Compliance Reviews”
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Air Quality
Environmental Compliance Audits
Environmental Management Systems
ISO 14001 Consulting
Phase I & II Environmental Site Assessments
RCRA Compliance
SARA Title III – Tier II / Form R
Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasures (SPCC)
Industrial Stormwater Permitting
Wastewater Permitting and Compliance
