Tasks of Environmental verifiers
Article 18
1. Environmental verifiers shall assess whether an organisation's environmental review, environmental policy, management system, audit procedures and their implementation comply with the requirements of this Regulation. 2. Environmental verifiers shall verify the following: (a) compliance of the organisation with all the requirements of this Regulation with respect to the initial environmental review, environmental management system, environmental audit and its results and the environmental statement or updated environmental statement; (b) compliance of the organisation with applicable Community, national, regional and local legal requirements relating to the environment; (c) the organisation's continuous improvement of environmental performance; and (d) the reliability, credibility and correctness of the data and information in the following documents: (i) the environmental statement; (ii) the updated environmental statement; (iii) any environmental information to be validated. 3. Environmental verifiers shall, in particular, verify the appropriateness of the initial environmental review, or audit or other procedures carried out by the organisation, without unnecessarily duplicating those procedures. 4. Environmental verifiers shall verify whether the results of the internal audit are reliable. Where appropriate, they shall use spot-checks for that purpose. 5. At the time of the verification for the preparation for registration of an organisation, the environmental verifier shall check that at least the following requirements are met by that organisation: (a) a fully operational environmental management system in accordance with Annex II is in place; (b) a fully planned audit programme is in place and has begun in accordance with Annex III so that at least the most significant environmental impacts have been covered; (c) the management review referred to in Part A of Annex II is completed; and (d) an environmental statement is prepared in accordance with Annex IV and sectoral reference documents were taken into account, where available. 6. For the purposes of the verification for the renewal of registration referred to in Article 6(1), the environmental verifier shall check that the following requirements are met by the organisation: (a) the organisation has a fully operational environmental management system in accordance with Annex II; (b) the organisation has a fully operational planned audit programme, with at least one audit cycle completed in accordance with Annex III; (c) the organisation has completed one management review; and (d) the organisation has prepared an environmental statement in accordance with Annex IV and sectoral reference documents were taken into account, where available. 7. For the purposes of the verification for renewal of registration referred to in Article 6(2), the environmental verifier shall check that at least the following requirements are met by the organisation: (a) the organisation has carried out an internal audit of the environmental performance and the compliance with applicable legal requirements relating to the environment in accordance with Annex III; (b) the organisation demonstrates ongoing compliance with applicable legal requirements relating to the environment and continuous improvement of its environmental performance; and (c) the organisation has prepared an updated environmental statement in accordance with Annex IV and, where available, sectoral reference documents were taken into account.