Environmental Auditing and Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Abstract

This study seeks to examine the issues of environmental auditing on sustainable development. The quest for industrialization and sustained development in Nigeria and the attendant improvement in the quality of life of the populace has taken its toll on the environment. The domineering influence of economic sophistication on every aspect of living had negative climatic impacts which sustainability sets out to correct. As sustainability pursues equitable distribution of opportunities between present and future generations through conservative use of resources, economic development promotes uncontrolled consumption of resources to increase material wealth.   Primary data was collected with the use of questionnaire and the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics method, correlation matrix and binary logit. The study hypothesis was also validated. It was revealed that this result is quite distorting, which implies that the more environmental audit carried out the less the effect on sustainable development, environmental engagement and impact assessment. Thus it was concluded that while companies subscribe to the policy of being environmentally friendly, only few engage environmental audit services. This might be a fall out from the voluntary nature of environmental audit.

KEYWORDS: Environmental Audit, Sustainable Development and Environmental Impact Assessment.