Sustainability Audits-Evaluating an organization’s sustainable practices, ensuring alignment with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards, and identifying areas for improvement.   A powerful tool for building a stronger sustainability strategy and improving ESG performance. An audit of your company or organization’s sustainability program will allow you to quickly and easily evaluate the sustainability practices that your business has already implemented and identify areas where there is opportunity for improvement. When conducting a comprehensive sustainability audit, our experts will: Review your sustainability policy and assess the reasonableness and comprehensiveness of the policy. Evaluate the extent to which your policy is likely to help ensure that your program operates in a sustainable manner. Recommend ways that your policy could be strengthened to further the goal of operating sustainably. Consider the metrics you are currently collecting in order to monitor compliance with your sustainability policy, and evaluate performance. Determine whether those metrics are the most appropriate for measuring each objective of your policy. If your program’s current metrics are insufficient, we recommend more appropriate metrics. Assess your program’s process for developing thresholds and targets for its performance. Evaluate whether your program is making sufficient progress toward setting a sustainability baseline. Case Study:  California High Speed Rail Sustainability Audit Project Details:  In May 2018, KERAMIDA was contracted by the California State Auditor’s Office to provide expertise on sustainability planning and policy development for infrastructure projects in support of the State Auditor’s audit of the efficiency and efficacy of the policies and practices employed by the California High Speed Rail Authority, which was at that time constructing the largest infrastructure project in the U.S.  KERAMIDA completed the following tasks: Reviewed the Authority’s sustainability policy and assessed the reasonableness and comprehensiveness of the policy. KERAMIDA evaluated the extent to which the policy is likely to help ensure the Authority designs, builds, and operates its high-speed rail system in a sustainable manner. KERAMIDA recommended ways the policy could be strengthened to further the Authority’s goal of constructing and operating the system sustainably. Reviewed best practices for monitoring sustainable construction and compared those practices to the Authority’s plans and actions. KERAMIDA considered the metrics the Authority is currently collecting and reviewing to monitor compliance with its sustainability policy and determine whether those metrics are the most appropriate option for measuring each objective of the policy. Where the Authority’s current metrics are insufficient, KERAMIDA recommended more appropriate metrics. Assessed the Authority’s process for developing thresholds and targets for its sustainability metrics. KERAMIDA evaluated whether the Authority made sufficient progress toward setting baselines for the project. Provided ongoing support to the Auditor’s office as they provided feedback from the audit to the CHSRA, including ways it could improve its monitoring and measurement of environmental impacts.   Key findings of KERAMIDA’s work include: The Authority has not sufficiently identified key objectives in its sustainability policy to ensure that its active construction projects follow sustainable practices. Although the Authority appropriately estimated the environmental impacts of its current construction before beginning work, it has not comprehensively evaluated its performance against those estimates. The Authority’s sustainability policy does not sufficiently distinguish between construction of the system—which has a significant impact on the State’s environment—and its eventual operation. The Authority has not identified construction‑related objectives for all its priorities even though the priorities themselves have relevance during the construction stage. For example, although the policy lists conservation of nonrenewable energy as a priority, the related objectives pertain only to the system’s operations. The Authority’s implementation plan—which details how it will assess compliance with the policy—is not always specific about what the Authority should measure during construction to determine success. The implementation plan does not include measurable, process-focused metrics related to construction for many of the objectives. For example, the plan states that the Authority will monitor the degree to which the system’s eventual operation improves air quality by tracking the number of emergency room visits for asthma sufferers; however, the plan does not include a metric to measure the degree to which the construction affects current air quality. The Authority has not comprehensively evaluated the sustainability performance of the currently active construction projects. Neglecting to monitor all pertinent aspects of performance continuously throughout construction could result in the individual construction projects falling short of their goals; if it reviews progress only after it completes a specific project, the Authority will have missed any opportunity to intervene to improve sustainability outcomes.   The California State Auditor’s Office published their audit report in November 2018, as requested by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.