Better environmental future in Europe through environmental auditing?

Abstract

environmental auditing must be rejected if the aim is to make companies introduce a specific management concept. Rather, it is preferable to leave the search for effective environmental protection strategies to the competitive system, especially since the criteria for environment-oriented management in the European Community audit proposal are without substance. Environmental auditing can, however, assume a complementary function in the framework of an overall environmental policy if it is designed as an information tool with which companies provide information on the development of environmental problems deriving from their manufacturing processes and products. However, the model required to establish a framework of quantity and evaluation criteria is not available. Further, auditing does not cover products. Similarly, there are no proposals defining the evaluation procedure for ecological resource scarcity. Thus, the attempt of the Commission of the European Communities to create the elementary prerequisites for consistent and verifiable environmental auditing in the corporate sector has failed.