Environmental compliance officers are responsible for making sure that companies are complying with local, provincial, and federal environmental regulations, by monitoring the environmental impact of business activities like waste disposal, industrial hygiene, emissions, and pesticide use practices and policies.
They may be employed by environmental agencies, research firms, consultancy agencies which are hired by organizations to make sure they meet environmental regulations and may be directly hired by those organizations as well.
There are two methods by which environmental compliance officers determine compliance,
An external environmental compliance audit is conducted by an officer who is independent from the organization, and determines whether they meet the regulations, these are the most common
And an environmental management audit which is conducted internally to determine if the company is meeting the environmental goals they set for themselves.
Once the audit is complete, they will outline the necessary areas of improvement by developing and implementing environmental management plans to reduce the risk of environmental problems occurring and ensuring compliance.
A big part of their role is to ensure that the people within the organization understand what needs to be done to be environmentally compliant. So they may prepare educational material, develop environmental education training programs and act as a resource for the individuals in the organization that need assistance.
Finally, they may also respond to complaints from the citizens about environmental issues and crises like oil spills and water contamination by working to ensure the issue is contained, managed properly and implementing policies to minimize the risk of it happening again.