The basis of environmental audit

Mainly includes the following aspects:

(1) Environmental protection policies, principles and strategies. That is, 1992, after the Rio Environment and Conference, China issued the twelve basic strategies in the 1994 white paper on environmental protection.

(2) Environmental laws and regulations. China attaches great importance to environmental protection and ecological construction, and has formed a relatively complete legal system in the past 20 years.

(3) Environmental standards. China has promulgated and fully implemented a number of environmental protection standards. With the effectiveness of environmental governance, some standards have been upgraded. Some international standards are also reference indicators for evaluating environmental protection achievements. Enterprises also set self-discipline standards according to the needs of developing green products.

(4) Accounting standards, general financial rules, accounting policies and accounting systems related to environmental protection.

(5) Auditing standards.

The foundation of environmental audit is more and wider than the laws and regulations adopted by general audit types, and auditors need to have rich relevant knowledge. More importantly, there are many shortcomings in the basis of implementing environmental audit at present, such as:

1 The boundary of environmental protection funds lacks specific provisions, and the accounting of environmental protection assets, liabilities and costs is untrue.

2 Some environmental protection effects and costs are difficult to measure, and it is difficult to use the calculated data as the basis for audit; In particular, some items are not measured in money, and their results or losses cannot be disclosed in accounting information (with examples).

Environmental laws and regulations are not perfect, and some environmental legislation is not perfect, which needs to be supplemented and revised in time.

To carry out environmental audit, it is necessary to have a sound audit foundation, a sound system of environmental laws and regulations, formulate environmental accounting standards, including environmental accounting policies and financial treatment, and formulate corresponding environmental norms. These are all important issues that need to be studied and solved in the implementation of environmental audit.