6. Limits

6.1 Audit time

There is no limit to the level of detail to which an audit can descend. The growing number of regulations applicable to a site could easily keep an audit team busy for several weeks on a small site. However, the time allowed for an environmental audit of regulatory compliance can hardly exceed a week, and is usually of the order of a few days. It will therefore not be possible to check all applicable regulations item by item and obligation by obligation. These limitations are due, on the one hand, to the limited time that sites can devote to this exercise and, on the other, to the limited budget available to the company for its audit program.

It's easy to see that an audit carried out by two people in one day cannot cover the same scope as an...