Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said there are things that we know for sure, and there are things that we know we don’t know. And then we also have things that we don’t know that we don’t know. The third category is what we want to uncover in an environmental audit…

Many companies have policies in place that specify the frequency of their internal environmental audits. Once a year or every other year, a company does an internal audit or hires external auditors to do it. When a company has a major chemical accident, investigative bodies such as the U.S. Chemical Safety Board looks into the
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There has been a lot of talk over the past few years about environmental sustainability. Conferences are held on environmental sustainability, and everyone is talking about it. There are hundreds of definitions of sustainability and yet no one seems to understand what it really means. So-called experts are coming up with “metrics” and “indices” as
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This article discusses the conundrum faced by an environmental auditor who is retained by his client to perform an audit. During the audit, the consultant uncovers certain serious environmental violations that clearly pose imminent harm to the public and the environment. What are this auditor’s duties to report? Case Study Consider this likely scenario. An
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