Environmental Questions & Answers

We discuss if Phase I ESA's include environmental compliance reports.

Many of our customers call us asking about 'environmental due diligence', and explain they're not entirely sure what they need, or are even asking to purchase. The issue is, environmental due diligence can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. And, since few people have any experience with environmental reports or assessments, they are often confused, expecting different things, or generally just need help figuring out what they really need to buy.

Listen to Environmental Audits 101 podcast with Doug Ruhlin of Resource Management Associates

Environmental audits are a crucial way to ensure your company is staying in compliance with the laws and regulations that you should be.

However, many people have great questions about environmental audits, such as:

• What is an environmental audit?
• The true costs of environmental audits.
• Do I need an environmental audit?
• Do I need to report the results of an environmental audit?
• Environmental Audits vs Phase I ESAs
• The top 5 things to know about environmental audits.

However, there's still many, many topics to cover. Recently I spent some time going over some of the more crucial aspects of environmental audits,

Environmental Audits 101 Podcast

We explain the connection and costs of a Phase I ESA & Environmental Audits.

In today's world, two of the most powerful tools to determine overall environmental status are Phase I Environmental Site Assessments and Environmental Audits. Despite being very different evaluation tools, many folks get them confused and think they overlap in some way, shape, or form.

One of the most common things we get folks asking us about is Phase I ESA costs and how they compare or are related to the cost of an environmental audit. Often, folks new to the environmental world may think they're one in the same, or one includes each other. So, let's dive into the difference in these two evaluations, and what they cost.

Environmental audit costs & prices are impacted by the variables at your facility.

With the rise in 3rd party environmental lawsuits, and the very real threat of enforcement action at your facility due to easily accessed information online, a lot of folks across the country are starting to seriously look at their compliance level.

Learning if you need an environmental audit is critical to your corporate success and financial well-being.

We're big advocates of being 100% in environmental compliance here at RMA. But frankly, our message seems to fall on deaf ears a lot. Environmental audits are a critical part of a company's environmental performance. But most companies still either don't do them, don't think they need them, or don't do them properly.

A lot of folks we talk to have heard of what an audit is, but don't think they need one, or don't want to spend the money since they are unsure how much an audit will cost, or don't think they'll get any value out of one. They constantly come back to the question of "do I need an environmental audit?"

We've found many prospective and current clients of ours aren't 100% sure what exactly an audit is. Here we set out to clearly answer what is an environmental audit, why you may consider using one, and how they could benefit your operation.

If you type into Google definition of audit, you get a pretty clear answer, which is "an official inspection of an individual's or organization's accounts, typically by an independent body."

That's a perfect answer. If you add the word environmental into that definition, you've got a somewhat vague, but good representation of the term.

Getting your facility into compliance isn't just a good idea, it's required if you want to comply with environmental laws. Many people say it's too expensive to be in complete compliane with rules and regulations. Here we discuss why people should be concerned about how expensive it is to get caught out of compliance, and the true costs of complying with applicable regulations.

We get a lot of people contacting us asking "Do I have the right permits? How do I know? Where do I begin?"

Well, considering environmental regulations exist on the federal, state, sometimes county, and sometimes city level, it's somewhat of a nightmare for most people to figure out. So step one is get an environmental audit performed by a third party. They'll figure out what you have, what you need, and what course of action is right for you.

Ok, easy enough. How much? What's the cost of environmental compliance?