National Guidelines for Environmental Audit in Nigeria.

These Guidelines provide for ensuring proper environmental auditing of the regulated community, as well as for assisting the regulated community to carryout mandatory and voluntary self-audit of their facilities, in order to serve as a reference material for all stakeholders requiring an environmental audit of their establishment. Environmental Audit is designed to protect the environment with the aim of: assessing performance against a set of targets, related to specific issues; evaluating compliance with environmental legislation and corporate policies; measuring performance against the requirements of an environmental management system standard; generating data for policy formulations; improving environmental management and sustainability; undertaking self-regulation practices towards resource conservation; exploring the potential economic, social and environmental benefits that an improved performance can achieve, such as: environmental benefits in terms of conservation of natural resources and pollution reduction; economic benefits in terms of savings in use of water, materials, energy; social benefits in terms of protection of health, vegetation, property and monuments. The Guidelines also specify the following objectives of environmental audit: generation of adequate environmental information of facilities for the potential environmental risks caused by their operations; defining how well the environmental management systems and equipment are performing; achieving resource optimisation and improved process performance; encouraging organisations to self-regulate their environmental practices and to increase their responsibilities to stakeholders and society; ensuring compliance, not only with laws, regulations and standards, but also with the requirements of the approved NESREA-endorsed Environmental Management Plan; enabling environmental problems and risks to be anticipated and responses to be planned; minimizing human exposure to risks from environment, health and safety issues.
The Guidelines also define: types of environmental audit and their scope, including waste and energy audit; certification of environmental consultants; environmental audit process; audit protocols for environmental management and performance; significant environmental issues, including: air pollution, water pollution, generation of solid and hazardous waste, biodiversity and loss of ecology, storm water management, greenhouse gas emissions inventory, noise pollution, soil pollution, chemicals management, risk assessment; types of waste; audit protocols for various sectors, including: mining, ports and harbours, wildlife facilities and sanctuaries, wood and wood products, water resources management, health and safety.