Environmental audits and Due Diligence

Environmental Due Diligence services:

Be it corporate acquisitions/ transfers, sales/ purchases of land, real estate investments, development: any real estate operation must take into account environmental risk. This risk may arise from plant non-conformity with regulations or from groundwater or soil contamination due to the site's environmental liabilities. The financial consequences of the current environmental status may have a significant impact on a transaction from both the seller's and purchaser's point of view. An environmental audit for the purposes of a real estate operation allows the rapid identification and assessment of any issues and risks associated with site or plant non-compliance or with legacy contamination.

• Assessment of legal conformity of companies’ plant and discharges
• Assessment of the impact of the site and past activities on public health and the environment
• Possible assessment of the order of magnitude of the financial costs arising from the identified non-conformances
• Recommendations for corrective action and prevention plans
  
  

The due diligence process usually involves 4 stages :

• Questionnaire and documentary analysis: site history (prior use), storage tanks and reservoirs, airborne emissions, wastewater discharges and utility networks, use of toxic substances and production of waste, official inspections, etc. Documentary analysis optimizes the effectiveness of the site visit.
• Site visit: carried out by experienced engineers, this visit begins by taking an inventory of all significant regulatory documents. All the company's premises (production, storage of raw materials, waste storage, discharge networks, etc.) together with all outside areas are visited to identify and assess any evidence of environmental impact and to draw up a list of all vectors of potential site contamination.
• Audit report: this is divided into two separate parts. The first part, in tabular form, provides a 1 or 2 page summary of the various points made in the audit: the nature of the aspects in need of improvement, associated costs and a detailed description of recommendations (reasons, associated potential risks, etc.). The second part of the report presents all the data supplied by the company and obtained during documentary analysis and the visit.
• Planning and prioritization of remedial action: the purpose of the final stage of due diligence is to plan any follow-up investigations which may be required, to specify and prioritize any corrective action and to assess the expenditure required for conformance correction. Analytical tools: CSD takes a systematic approach to analysis and has a database allowing rapid identification of decisive factors and straightforward estimation of their financial consequences.  

Due diligence is frequently carried out in English and within very tight deadlines.

 

Other environmental services:

• Support for the contracting authority and assistance with procedures
• Producing technical assessments
• Environmental impact assessments
• Risk analyses
• Environmental risk analyses
• Prospective planning, including dismantling and disposal
• Operational support
• Controls on process engineering methods
• Environmental, as well as ecological and pedological construction support services
• Monitoring during live operation or the current life cycle