ISO/TC 207/SC 2 - Environmental auditing and related environmental investigations

This document specifies principles, requirements and guidelines for the verification and validation of water statements. It is applicable to organizational, product and project water statement verification and validation, and can also be used to provide confidence in reported water information on a local, regional or national level. This document is programme neutral. If a programme is applicable, requirements of that programme are additional to the requirements of this document. NOTE Legislation can differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It is the user’s responsibility to determine how applicable legal requirements relate to this document.

This document gives guidance on how to conduct an environmental due diligence (EDD) assessment through a systematic process of identifying environmental aspects, issues and conditions as well as determining, if appropriate, their business consequences. This document does not provide guidance on how to conduct other types of environmental assessment, such as: a) environmental audits; b) environmental impact assessments; c) environmental performance, efficiency, or reliability assessment; d) intrusive environmental investigations and remediation.

This document gives principles and guidelines for assuring the environmental information an organization includes in its environmental reports. This document is applicable to assuring other types of reports in principle provided that special consideration is paid to identifying the competence needed by the assurance provider.

This document provides specific requirements for bodies performing validation and verification of declared sustainability information. This document adopts the principles and general requirements of ISO/IEC 17029 for the competence, consistent operation and impartiality of bodies performing validation/verification as conformity assessment activities. This document includes additional principles and requirements that are necessary to contextualise ISO/IEC 17029 for validation and verification of sustainability information. Any programme requirements related to bodies are additional to the requirements of this document.

This document specifies general principles and requirements for the validation and verification process of sustainability information, including reporting on environmental, social, governance (ESG) and other sustainability aspects. It provides general principles and requirements for determining the categorization of quantitative and qualitative information. These principles and requirements contribute to the set of rules and procedures that are provided in validation/verification programmes. This document can also be used as the basis for validation and verification activities that support other conformity assessment schemes. NOTE: This document can be applied by validation and verification bodies according to ISO/IEC 17029. It can contribute to schemes operated by inspection bodies according to ISO/IEC 17020 or certification bodies according to ISO/IEC 17065.

This document specifies requirements for the verification process of quantitative and qualitative sustainability information, including reporting on environmental, social, governance (ESG) and other sustainability aspects. It applies to the set of rules and procedures for carrying out verification by providing elements of a verification programme, such as process, evidence-gathering activities, reporting. This document addresses uncertainty in values and how to address these uncertainties. It addresses primary and secondary sources of data and how they relate to the strength of verification evidence. For the verification of quantitative information, it details the approach for continuous and discrete forms of data and the types of evidence gathering activities that can be applicable to each. Continuous data can be further categorized ratio and interval data. Verification approaches include an assessment of data collection, data editing, data transformation, data control processes as well as numerical techniques that aid in verification analytical testing. For verification of qualitative information, it details the approach for binary, ordinal, and nominal forms of data and the types of evidence gathering activities that can be applicable to each. Verification approaches include an assessment of data collection, data editing, data transformation, data control processes as well as numerical techniques that aid in verification analytical testing

ISO/TS 17021-2:2012 specifies additional competence requirements for personnel involved in the audit and certification process for Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and complements the existing requirements of ISO/IEC 17021.

ISO 19011:2011 provides guidance on auditing management systems, including the principles of auditing, managing an audit programme and conducting management system audits, as well as guidance on the evaluation of competence of individuals involved in the audit process, including the person managing the audit programme, auditors and audit teams. ISO 19011:2011 is applicable to all organizations that need to conduct internal or external audits of management systems or manage an audit programme. The application of ISO 19011:2011 to other types of audits is possible, provided that special consideration is given to the specific competence needed.

ISO 19011:2002 provides guidance on the principles of auditing, managing audit programmes, conducting quality management system audits and environmental management system audits, as well as guidance on the competence of quality and environmental management system auditors. It is applicable to all organizations needing to conduct internal or external audits of quality and/or environmental management systems or to manage an audit programme. The application of ISO 19011 to other types of audits is possible in principle provided that special consideration is paid to identifying the competence needed by the audit team members in such cases.

This International Standard provides guidance on how to conduct an EASO through a systematic process of identifying environmental aspects and environmental issues and determining, if appropriate, their business consequences. This International Standard covers the roles and responsibilities of the parties to the assessment (the client, the assessor and the representative of the assessee), and the stages of the assessment process (planning, information gathering and validation, evaluation and reporting). The process for conducting an EASO is shown in Figure 1.