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Environmental audit

Based on consistently encountered and highly questionable environmental audit results in CEE, Corporate Due  Diligence and Investigation (CDDI) has expanded services through its partners to offer full environmental audit and industrial hygiene testing.

These audits are commonly performed during an acquisition process. It should be stated the environmental due diligence covers a wider scope than just site assessment and thus may include the entire context of operations compliance with environmental law. In this respect environmental due diligence is more related to company operations, whereas site assessment is designed to identify the type and extent of land and water pollution,  its sources and history, impacts on health, possible remediation scenarios and their costs.

In this fashion we both recognize and reduce risk, with EDD reports following internationally recognized frameworks, and site assessment work adhering to ASTM standards (common in the USA).

An EDD audit which can be also called a compliance audit, typically involves the following subject areas:

  • Environmental permits ranging from the specific use of the property and facility construction (environmental decision obtained prior to construction based on environmental impact assessment if needed).
  • Permits for emission of pollutants (pollutant specific and quantitative/defined mass per year). HereIt should be said that often false monitoring  results produced to demonstrate compliance can mean fines, and it is in your interest to nip this in the bud.
  • Integrated permits under IPPC directive (some operations are obliged to receive a permit under Pollution Prevention Control Directive).
  • Waste production permits--often investigators note sharp violations and heightened corruption risks.
  • Monitoring and reporting requirements related to: waste management; waste water, stack emission, noise. 
  • Environmental pollution status (soil, ground and surface water). This service does only compare analytical data to legal thresholds but also involves modeling to assess the acceptable level of pollution for a given land use and ecosystem.
  • Waste management monitoring, including evaluating permit needs (or a lack of permits), waste coding (or wrong coding), waste amounts and quality.

Please do not hesistate contact us for a consultation and a free assessment of what is needed by you and your company.

Site audits

Unfortunately, thousands of sites throughout the region have not been properly investigated re environmental standards, and until the 1980s environmental law was lacking--and it was common to discharge waste directly to the environment in the direct vicinity of industrial facilities. In short, legacy issues both exist and are often covered up--which means the tests you accept prior to an investment could be the key to business success or catastrophe.

Although obligatory testing is not always the norm, the discovery of contaminants will oblige costly cleanup operations or worse.

Site audits are typically approached in the following fashion:

  • Phase one--a review of existing knowledge and information through a local investigation and interviews with informed people to discover the site history (processes, technologies, location of facilities, chemicals used, pollutants migration pathways and impact mechanisms). Phase one will identify potential hazards and decide on further action.
  • Phase two--this is analytical confirmation of pollution levels, which is conducted through  screening methods which are covering a wide range of parameters. Testing covers approximately 500 compounds  in soil and water, but testing needs to be tailored for you site or you are potentially wasting time and money
  • Phase three--this is the delineation of the spatial extent of pollution and identification of remediation technologies. This may also involve supervision and monitoring of remediation work. This phase typically requires extensive drilling and sampling to recognize spatial distribution of pollutants. It also involves knowledge of risk assessment and modeling of pollutant transfer in soil and water, as well as the impact on health and the ecosystem.

Industrial hygiene

Health and safety risks must be recognized based on the assessment of a given workplace, with the first step being to identify all hazards and their sources along with the assessment of probability as to the likelihood of harm or illness befalling employees in both the context of short- and long-term outlooks.

Unfortunately, hazard identification is often poorly implemented by safety officers and does not include employees.  This means that protective measures taken by employees are neither satisfactory nor effective.

To counter such risks, we offer health and safety status assessments with compliance aimed at both formal and informal aspects. Here we target the primary areas where compliance falls short, with such audits aimed at correcting the wide range of failings seen throughout the region, these ranging from a need to establish better procedures, training regimes, processes for hazardous substances to advice on how to set up employee health programs and proper monitoring systems to ensure production hall safety.

Our experts have decades of experience conducting both full industrial hygiene audits and environmental site audits and testing. Our results are guaranteed to remain objective, and we also offer licensing/permissions support and environmental advisory services.

Through our key partners we also pecialize in conducting thorough and objective industrial hygiene audits, which encompass workplace occupational environment for  physical, chemical and biological factors through testing and sampling, needs for administrative controls or compliance needs and adherence to good practice and government regulations.

We thus work with both operational and facilities management to not only meet audit objectives but to also advice on how erase such shortcomings.

Depending on a facility or firm, we may need to evaluate the following:

  • Chemical hazards, which could come from vapors, gases, fumes, dusts, etc.
  • Biological hazards ranging from viral and bacterial risk to fungus, parasite, or any living organism that cause disease.
  • Physical hazards, which can range from noise levels, to light levels to lack of proper production floor adherence to current regulations.
  • Physiological and psychological stress risks placed on workers, which can come from repetitive or awkward tasks.
  • Compliance with applicable law. These apply to proper engineering and administrative controls, which could run from handling toxic materials to better scheduling, to adhering to ventilation standards to ensuring that employees at all times wear or use proper protective equipment.

Diligence is the key here, and such audits may also be combined with site security audits to ensure that risks to your company are properly mitigated in both spheres.

Full chemical/environmental testing

Central Europe is notoriously rife with falsified testing results, with some experts privately estimating that up to 50 percent of results used to obtain permissions are falsified This is a key danger to the future of your firm or production facility. Whether you are in process of developing a retail center on former industrial land or whether you are planning to acquire a production facility from an established company, failed or falsified tests can leave you holding the bag--and facing massive civil and criminal penalties that could threaten the future of both your firm and career.

Through our partner we specialize in objective and exact results. Full testing may be needed or spot checks, and our advisory services include leading experts who are recognized throughout the region for their level of diligence in the field.

During this process testing vehicles and specialists will be sent to your site following a review of the company's needs and past history. Testing may include the following:

  • Sewage or waste levels (i.e. the types of contaminants and the levels in the context of environmental legislations)
  • Chemical airborne contaminants (vapors, gases, fumes, dusts, etc._
  • Biological hazards ranging from viral and bacterial risk to fungus, parasite, or any living organism that cause disease.
  • Legacy issues/trace contaminants (which is especially important considering the communist history of some countries
  • Natural contaminant levels (especially important in the case of agricultural development)

Whether your needs lie in testing soil or water on site, monitoring hazardous waste levels or simply preparing documents for environmental permits, you can rest assured that we offer through our partners .state of the art testing and analysis. This includes:

  • Trained staff to ensure fast and precise analysis
  • Sampling trucks with mobile monitoring/sampling device coolers to ensure sampling integrity
  • Pollution mapping and modeling expertise, using GIS
  • Deep knowledge of legal systems and practical issues regarding compliance
  • The ability to set up a team of top experts in different fields to cope with more complicated issues and environmental risks

When needed we also consult with former or current inspectors who know the law and have access to knowledge regarding current policies, developments, expected changes of institutional focus etc.

Final reports are "board ready," and here it is important to note that we also offer followup consultation with regard to strategies to move forward, land reclamation possibilities or methods/technology necessary  to meet environmental norms.