The ministry for environment has rolled out a new set of rules that allows the vital activity of environmental monitoring and auditing to go beyond the remit of state pollution control boards. The Environment Audit Rules 2025 will scrutinise whether industrial units are compliant with environmental regulations. The move has been welcomed as the overall framework for monitoring and compliance within the existing environmental framework has been facing constraints in terms of manpower, resources, capacity and infrastructure. However, experts say that the real challenge is not in conducting quality environmental audits, but in ensuring that the data they generate is put to meaningful use.
“For that, public accessibility is key,” says Nivit Kumar Yadav, programme director, industrial pollution, Centre for Science & Environment. Environmental audits have been conducted in various forms for over three decades, but their findings are rarely available in the public domain. “As a result, valuable information often ends up sitting unused in reports, limiting its role in decision-making, enforcement and public engagement.”
This framework for auditing is supported by the Central Pollution Control Board, the regional offices of the environment ministry, and the state pollution control boards/pollution control committees. “These limitations have hampered their ability to monitor and enforce environmental compliance across the vast number of projects and industries operating nationwide,” an official of the environment ministry acknowledges. This scheme aims to bridge the manpower and infrastructure deficits faced by regulatory authorities, thereby strengthening the effective implementation of environmental compliance mechanisms.
Under the new rules, private agencies can get themselves accredited as auditors. Much like chartered accountants, environmental auditors can get themselves licensed and be authorised to evaluate the compliance of projects with environmental laws and their adherence with best practices in the prevention, control, and abatement of pollution. Environmental regulation has, in recent years, transcended policing and bookkeeping. Given that human-caused climate change is seen as a problem that nations must collectively fix, new dimensions to environmental regulations have emerged. Thus, audits undertaken by these agencies can also be used for compliance with ‘Green Credit Rules’, under which individuals and organisations can gain tradeable ‘credits’ for afforestation, sustainable water management, and waste management, among other activities.
Complex accounting practices
Beyond industrial units, nearly every company in India will have to account for its direct and indirect carbon emissions. This will entail fairly complex accounting practices, which are beyond what Pollution Control Board officials can handle.
Experts say that preparing for the future should not be at the expense of compromising core responsibilities. It is usually at the district, block, and panchayat levels that the most flagrant environmental travesties abound, which escape notice usually because of the lack of trained staff. The new regime must seek to empower them too.
Experts also say that what’s needed now is not just better audits, but a clear system to make this information accessible to all stakeholders. “Industries should be required to publicly disclose key environmental indicators, such as coal and freshwater consumption, or measures adopted to reduce these,” says Yadav of CSE. “Without such transparency, third-party audits risk becoming just another compliance formality”.
Institutionalising the public disclosure of environmental audit data is essential for strengthening accountability. Making this information accessible will encourage public participation, support regulators and encourage industries to improve their environmental performance, he added.
A high-level steering committee, chaired by the additional secretary, ministry for environment, will oversee the implementation of the audit scheme. It will be responsible for monitoring progress, recommending amendments and coordinating efforts at the Central and state levels.
The notification introduces several key institutional players. One of them is the Registered Environment Auditor (REA) – an individual or a firm authorised to conduct environment audits. These auditors must first obtain certification from a government-appointed body known as the Environment Audit Designated Agency (EADA).
EADA will be responsible for managing the entire audit ecosystem: Certifying auditors, registering qualified professionals and firms, monitoring their performance, and facilitating training and capacity building. In case of any discrepancy between an audit report submitted by an REA and the findings of a government officer, the government officer’s report will take precedence.
The Central government will have the final authority in resolving such disputes and issuing necessary directions for implementation. Therein lies the rub, fears the green brigade, as the government’s interests may not necessarily be in line with the interests of environmental upkeep.