Environmental Auditing in European Operations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hie paper will describe briefly the background to environmental auditing in BP Exploration's european operations and its evolution in the 1980's into a regular programmed activity as part of environmental protection management. It will discuss the experience gained with environmental auditing and the development of the ideas that have lead to the incorporation of environmental concerns into the wider loss control auditing system. Early environmental audits, or review, carried out on BP Exploration operations tended to be general in character, cover only large operations and sites, and had terms of reference related to that specific audit. The development of the Environmental Protection Management system in the 1980's, of which environmental auditing is an essential element, dictated the need for a structured auditing system applicable to all operating sites large and small. The system developed permitted site managers to track their environmental performance from audit to audit and also allowed some comparison between similar sites. The adoption, by BP, of the International Safety Rating System (ISRS) gave the opportunity to produce an integrated system for auditing loss control management in its widest sense. The system, which is compatible with ISRS, explicitly includes environmental management. The paper will include details of environmental management audits, baseline audits and technical audits which now comprise the current environmenta auditing system employed by BP Exploration.