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Environmental law is relatively new, but legislation is developing rapidly. More prosecutions for environmental offences are taking place annually. Much of the legislation is based on the “command and control” approach. This approach has been criticised and market based alternatives advocated. Market failure suggests that an absolute trust in markets is misplaced. Alternative solutions to the regulatory problem have been sought in self‐disclosure. Self‐disclosure is the policy approach of the EPA and is contingent upon an environmental audit. Although this is a regulatory approach there are both legal and economic benefits accruing to firms from environmental auditing and self‐disclosure. But with the benefits come risks. The risk element has led the US legal profession to seek “evidentiary privilege”, but the EPA has rejected this.

This paper aims to examine the effect of carbon emissions on audit fees. The authors hypothesize that firms in cities with higher carbon emission levels have lower reporting transparency, higher return volatility or are subject to higher reputation risk, causing them to be charged higher audit fees for auditing services.

The authors use panel data of 25,960 firm-year observations from a sample of Chinese firms. The carbon emission data for each Chinese city are obtained from the China Emission Accounts and Datasets for Emerging Economies. This paper adopts a multiple regression model to study the impact of carbon emissions on audit fees.

The authors find that firms located in cities with higher carbon emission levels and firms with more carbon emissions are charged, on average, a higher audit fee. This audit fee effect of carbon risk is transmitted by lessened information transparency and elevated financial risk within these firms. This paper shows that auditors consider carbon risk in their audit fee decisions and other factors that could influence audit risk and effort.

This study draws a connection between carbon emissions and audit fees. It is especially relevant due to the increasing importance of environmental factors in the audit risk assessment. In addition, the findings suggest that a firm implementing a proactive environmental strategy benefits the economy and decreases the costs to the firm for services such as auditing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether firms with high environmental disclosure have a low possibility of non-standard audit opinions and audit fees and whether this trend is more obvious after than prior to the Measures for the Disclosure of Environmental Information (Measure) implemented in 2008.

Based on the Measures implemented in 2008, the authors select data for the listed manufacturing firms from 2004 to 2006 (Pre-Measure) and from 2009 to 2011 (Post-Measure) as research samples to investigate the relationships between environmental disclosures, audit opinions and audit fees with difference in difference models. In addition, we also consider the influence of media attention, the polluting industry and internal control on the audit effect of environmental disclosure.

The results show that the level of environmental disclosure is significantly negatively correlated with the possibility of issuing non-standard audit opinions and audit fees after measure is implemented, especially hard environmental information. Further evidence indicates that the auditing effect of environmental disclosures is stronger on firms that receive less media attention, in firms with better internal controls, and in firms belonging to industries with heavy pollution.

In the Chinese setting, a high level of environmental information disclosures can effectively reduce the audit risk and lead to a high possibility of standard audit opinions and low audit fees. This effect is pronounced after issuing Measure. The conclusions suggest that measure and increasing environmental disclosure have an obvious positive audit effect and that firms should be forced or encouraged to disclose more environmental information from the perspective of auditors in China.

Trends in modern management point toward composite and comprehensive management systems that provide for competitive performance in the global economy. Management system audits are widely used to ensure compliance with planned arrangements and improvement of business performance. This paper addresses the harmonization and integration of audits of different management systems. The current international auditing standards for quality (ISO 10011) and environmental (ISO 14010/11/12) management are reviewed. A detailed comparison of the form, structure and content of these standards is provided. Subsequently, criteria for “best auditing practice” are illustrated. The possibilities of harmonizing audit standards, and integrating them with the current best audit practice are assessed. Integration on the basis of the systems approach is suggested. Finally, it is concluded that integrated audits and audit standards will emerge in the very near future.

The environmental audit is here to stay. The global concern about environmental damage that underlines this development is considered and ways in which some organisations are already responding and their reasons for doing so are discussed. The “green audit” can be used to demonstrate compliance with new legislation; more importantly it provides management with information on environmental performance. The content of such an audit is described in stages: pre‐audit, setting objectives, preparation, drawing up documentation, areas to audit, data processing, reporting, implementation and post‐audit review.

Examines the environmental legislation facing companies in the United Kingdom. Discusses the legislative background, environmental audit definition, audit types, the American experience, the reasons for auditing, the auditing team, collecting information, conducting the audit, and the audit report. Concludes that the environmental legislation means a period of uncertainty for the commercial property sector, the evidence from American industry showing that any party can demand an environmental audit.

Explores the concept of the environmental audit. Emphasizes its importance as one contribution that attempts to prevent the destruction of the world in which we live. Stresses that it is everyone’s responsibility ‐ that of both individuals and the companies and organizations in which they operate. Describes stages of the audit process that have been successful in practice.

Existing studies have shown that all kinds of audit risks greatly affect audit pricing for accounting firms. However, it is still unclear whether environmental risks caused by environmental violations lead to a high audit fee. This study aims to investigate whether accounting firms raise audit fees after client firms have violated environmental regulations or have been punished for such violations.

This study selects listed firms with environmental violations between 1994 and 2018 as the treatment sample and match the treatment group with a control group of firms from the same industry, of similar asset size and with no environmental violations for the same time period. Then, this study constructs a difference-in-difference (DID) model to explore the impact of firm environmental violations (or punishment for environmental violations) on the audit pricing.

This study finds that accounting firms tend to raise audit fees after client firms have violated environmental regulations or have been punished for such violations, and this increasing effect is different due to environmental regulation intensity, regional span and internal control defects. Further evidences show that environmental violations influence audit fees through financial restatement, whereas environmental punishments impact audit fees through earnings management and risk-taking.

This study enriches the literature on determining factors of audit fees and economic consequences of environmental violations and provides empirical supports to understand the pricing behavior of accounting firms.

Recently, a number of environmental laws and regulations have been enacted to hold organizations more accountable for their environmental responsibilities. The International Standards Organization (ISO), issued ISO 14000 environmental standards to assist entities worldwide in managing their environmental requirements and to ensure that their environmental policies and practices conform to their missions and goals. ISO 14000 environmental standards are divided into six categories: (1) environmental management systems; (2) environmental auditing; (3) environmental performance evaluation; (4) environmental labeling; (5) life‐cycle assessment; and (6) environmental aspects in product standards. These standards assist entities in preparing step‐by‐step implementation plans to adopt an adequate and effective environmental management system, conduct proper environmental audits, and successfully become registered to ISO 14001. This article presents a 15‐step process which accountantsshould suggest to their organizations to achieve ISO 14001 certification.

As competition in the global economy grows, management systems are becoming increasingly complex and diverse. Management system audits, applied for the examination of system effectiveness and compliance with planned arrangements, seem to be following the same path. This paper addresses the fundamental models, concepts, principles and practices of management system auditing, with the objective of improving the consistency and effectiveness of audits across quality, environmental, financial, safety, maintenance and other auditing disciplines. The concept of a generic audit is introduced on the basis of the systems approach. Discipline‐specific audit definitions are analyzed, and a generic audit definition is depicted. Quality, environmental and accounting audit principles are compared, and a set of basic features of a generic audit is illustrated and discussed. Common audit practices are subsequently illustrated, followed by an outline of the structure and content of a generic audit guideline, together with the proposed two‐prong approach to the development of the generic audit.