Environmental auditing is the systematic, documented, periodic, and objective review of facility operations and practices related to meeting environmental compliance. Environmental auditing of all Department of the Interior (DOI) facilities is required by Departmental Manual Chapter, 515 DM 2, "Environmental Auditing." In addition, 518 DM 2, "Compliance with Waste Management Requirements" addresses the commitment of DOI to comply with applicable federal, state, and local environmental requirements. Each DOI bureau is responsible for developing and implementing its own environmental auditing program.

An environmental management system (EMS) is a framework that helps an agency to achieve its environmental goals through consistent control of its operations. An EMS encourages an agency to continuously improve its environmental performance by following a repeated cycle of commitment and policy, planning, implementation, measurement and evaluation, and management review. Therefore, an EMS provides the framework to manage environmental issues and concerns. For example, an EMS will ensure that environmental training is conducted and documented, but will not dictate how the actual training is to be conducted. EMS models have been developed by numerous organizations, however, the choice of what EMS model to follow is best suited to an individual agency's internal needs and goals.

An EMS is a dynamic tool. The development and implementation of an effective EMS program require a firm commitment by an agency's senior level management and the establishment of an environmental policy consistent with an agency's mission. This requires a considerable amount of self-introspection in terms of an agency's mission. The agency's senior level management must also develop a systematic method to manage existing environmental programs and determine areas of improvement, establish objectives and measure the progress through a self-auditing program. The agency's environmental policy should direct the EMS to achieve improvements in overall environmental performance. As an EMS starts to take shape, procedures, programs and technologies can be put in place to further improve environmental performance. As the agency's EMS matures, environmental considerations can then be integrated into all agency missions.

The benefits of an EMS include:

(1) improvement in overall environmental performance and compliance,

(2) establishment of a framework for using pollution prevention practices to meet EMS objectives,

(3) increased efficiency and potential cost savings when managing environmental obligations,

(4) predictability and consistency in managing environmental obligations,

(5) more effective targeting of scarce environmental management resources, and

(6) enhancement of public posture with outside stakeholders.