Environmental or sustainability audits are useful for businesses with large bills for energy, water or waste.

For example, a bakery franchise could apply the lessons learnt from an audit to all franchises and update the national operation or a production process.

An environmental audit can help you to:

• make long-term savings to energy or water, or reduce waste – for example, a printing firm switches to waterless inks and uses only one fiftieth of their previous water consumption
• find unexpected ways to save money by recommending changes in behaviour –  a good audit will take a close look at your business and suggest changes to workplace behaviours
• become more sustainable and create new marketing opportunities with other businesses or consumers – this can include getting formal recognition or accreditation

Who can do an energy and water audit?

The EPA maintains a list of environmental auditors along with advice on what to consider before conducting an audit

The Clean Energy Regulator offers a list of accredited energy auditors to assess your air conditioning and refrigeration.

Tips, advice and further resources

• Before you hire an auditor, ask if they have any case studies on a similar business to help you decide on their approach and successes.
• Some auditing companies offer software linked to an accounting package to track energy and water usage after the audit.
• Once the first environmental audit is completed and savings have been made, business operators typically start looking for even more ways to be efficient.