Environmental Site Assessment (Phase I)

CRA provides a complete range of environmental auditing services. These services include Phase I Environmental Site Assessments, Environmental Compliance Audits, and preparation of environmental liability and compliance cost estimates. To date, CRA has successfully completed more than 20,000 such projects for industrial, commercial, and institutional clients worldwide. CRA is able to meet aggressive implementation and reporting requirements that are required for the sale or acquisition of property and/or stock. CRA's plant/facility environmental experience ensures that we have staff that are familiar with and understand a large range of industrial processes, hence environmental issues are properly identified and practically assessed relative to the type of transaction and specific client concerns.

Conducting due diligence and compliance audits is a useful tool in reducing or managing the risks associated with purchasing properties or companies including:

• Potential costs for plant improvement to achieve
   compliance with legal standards;
• Reduction in site value due to contamination;
• Potential land remediation costs; and
• Identification of poor plant management.

A typical project is likely to involve a walkover assessment of the site by a trained auditor, interviews with site employees to determine the current and historic practices at the site, review of the environmental setting of the site, review of regulator information relating to the site and the surrounding area, and factual reporting of the assessment highlighting potential risks.  A varying degree of legal compliance assessment can also be added into the package depending on the individual project.