Inclusion of the Environmental Practices in Audits Performed at the Federal Institution of Education

Abstract

This article investigates whether an environmental audit has been conducted at a Federal Institution of Education. The specific objectives are to: i) verify the environmental controls held at the institution, ii) investigate the environmental audits within the institution; and, iii) prepare a list containing the main environmental factors that could be monitored by the institution. The research has a descriptive purpose; the procedures we used are bibliographic, document review, and case study. The research instrument is documentary research or primary sources to approach the problem in the qualitative way. The study sample is a federal institution of professional and technological education, and temporal analysis includes the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Based upon the annual plan for internal audit activities, and on the annual report of the internal audit activities, we found that the institution has not conducted any environmental audits in the investigated period. The result was that, in relation to internal control, there is the obligation for the adoption of a Plan of Sustainable Logistics (PSL) and its publicity on the institutional web page. We found the absence of the PSL at the institution, making it impossible to assert that the institution conducts internal environmental controls. We observed only a self-assessment in the institutional management report, in which one of its topics included information on sustainable procurement, awareness campaigns, and waste separation. Within the absence of the environmental controls and audits, we prepared a list containing the main factors that can be seen on environmental audits in the public educational institutions.