Catherine Liston-Heyes (University of Sussex) , Luc Juillet (University of Ottawa)
As part of their functions, Supreme Audit Institutions audit public programs, including those seeking to protect the environment, for value-for-money. In the last twenty years, environmental performance audits have become more important to this work. In 1995, Canada became a pioneer in this area by creating a Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD), located within the Auditor General’s Office but with separate statutory mandate and authorities to audit the environmental performance of federal programs.
Does having a dedicated parliamentary officer focused on environmental performance lead to material differences in how environmental auditing is used? Should the environment be treated as a separate issue with independent oversight mechanisms? At a time when the world is facing a climate/biodiversity crisis and seeking solutions to close the “implementation gap” in environmental policy, a better understanding of these questions could be of value to academics and practitioners.
The study explores these questions by comparing the environmental audits produced by the UK’s National Audit Office, which does not have a dedicated environmental commissioner but does environmental performance audits as part of its mandate, with those completed by CESD over the last twenty years. More specifically, after analyzing the differences in institutional frameworks, we compare the number of reports as well as the audit recommendations contained in the reports of both agencies (UK n=650; Canada n=800). While we document differences on several dimensions, our particular focus is on the extent to which each office focuses on values of economy, efficiency, and performance.