Course Introduction

Climate Risk and Environmental Auditing Training Course provides a comprehensive and practical framework for auditing climate-related risks, environmental performance, sustainability controls, regulatory obligations, and organisational resilience. The programme equips internal auditors and assurance professionals with the knowledge required to evaluate how climate and environmental issues affect strategy, operations, financial performance, compliance, reputation, supply chains, and long-term organisational sustainability.

The course examines the different dimensions of climate risk, including physical risks arising from changing weather patterns and environmental conditions and transition risks associated with changes in technology, regulation, markets, consumer expectations, financing, and business models. Participants will learn how to incorporate these risks into audit risk assessments, engagement planning, control evaluations, scenario analysis, and forward-looking assurance activities.

Environmental auditing is explored across areas such as energy consumption, greenhouse-gas emissions, water use, waste management, pollution prevention, resource efficiency, environmental incidents, biodiversity, land use, and environmental compliance. Participants will examine how to assess environmental management systems, operational controls, performance targets, monitoring processes, environmental data, management reporting, and corrective actions.

The programme also addresses the growing importance of climate and environmental information in organisational decision-making and external reporting. Participants will learn how to evaluate emissions data, environmental metrics, climate targets, transition plans, sustainability disclosures, calculation methodologies, assumptions, data controls, evidence trails, and management assertions. Particular attention is given to data quality, measurement boundaries, estimation risks, reporting consistency, and the controls needed to support credible environmental information.

Advanced audit approaches include climate scenario analysis, environmental data analytics, predictive risk indicators, geospatial information, remote monitoring, artificial intelligence, automated controls monitoring, and technology-enabled environmental assurance. The course also considers emerging nature-related risks, biodiversity dependencies, supply-chain exposure, carbon markets, environmental claims, greenwashing risks, and the challenges associated with rapidly evolving regulatory and stakeholder expectations.

By the end of the programme, participants will be able to develop risk-based climate and environmental audit strategies, assess environmental controls, evaluate climate resilience, test environmental information, identify control weaknesses, and communicate actionable recommendations. The course enables internal auditors to provide forward-looking assurance over climate and environmental risks while maintaining evidence quality, professional skepticism, sound governance, and alignment with organisational objectives.

Duration

10 days

Who Should Attend

• Chief Audit Executives, Heads of Internal Audit, and Internal Audit Directors responsible for climate and environmental assurance.

• Internal Audit Managers and Supervisors developing climate-risk and environmental audit programmes.

• Internal Auditors seeking advanced skills in climate risk assessment, environmental auditing, and sustainability assurance.

• Environmental Managers responsible for environmental performance, compliance, resource management, and environmental risk.

• Sustainability Professionals involved in climate strategies, emissions management, environmental reporting, and sustainability programmes.

• Risk Managers assessing physical climate risks, transition risks, environmental exposures, and emerging sustainability threats.

• Compliance Professionals responsible for environmental legislation, permits, regulatory requirements, and environmental controls.

• ESG Professionals responsible for climate, environmental, sustainability, reporting, and organisational resilience initiatives.

• Finance and Reporting Professionals working with environmental metrics, climate information, sustainability disclosures, and related controls.

• Supply Chain and Procurement Professionals assessing environmental risks across suppliers, contractors, logistics, and sourcing activities.

• Health, Safety and Environment Professionals involved in environmental controls, incident management, compliance, and operational risk.

• Governance and Assurance Professionals integrating climate and environmental risks into enterprise risk and assurance frameworks.

• Data and Analytics Professionals supporting emissions reporting, environmental monitoring, climate analytics, and risk intelligence.

• Professionals involved in climate resilience, environmental transformation, sustainable finance, carbon management, and emerging environmental risks.

Course Objectives

• Develop a comprehensive understanding of climate risk, environmental risk, environmental auditing, climate assurance, and their relationship with organisational strategy and resilience.

• Distinguish physical climate risks from transition risks and assess how each category can affect operations, assets, supply chains, financial performance, and strategic objectives.

• Develop risk-based climate and environmental audit strategies that connect climate exposures, environmental impacts, organisational controls, regulatory requirements, and assurance priorities.

• Evaluate environmental governance frameworks, board oversight, management accountability, environmental policies, objectives, responsibilities, and performance-management structures.

• Assess environmental controls covering energy consumption, greenhouse-gas emissions, water, waste, pollution, natural resources, biodiversity, and environmental incidents.

• Apply practical audit techniques to greenhouse-gas emissions information, environmental metrics, climate targets, transition plans, calculations, estimates, assumptions, and supporting evidence.

• Evaluate climate scenario analysis, resilience assessments, transition planning, and adaptation strategies to determine whether material climate risks are appropriately identified and managed.

• Assess environmental compliance frameworks, permits, regulatory obligations, monitoring activities, inspections, incidents, corrective actions, and remediation processes.

• Apply data analytics, predictive indicators, automated monitoring, geospatial information, and emerging technologies to improve climate and environmental audit procedures.

• Identify greenwashing, environmental data manipulation, unsupported claims, inconsistent disclosures, weak evidence, and other integrity risks affecting climate and environmental information.

• Strengthen climate and environmental audit reporting by communicating evidence-based findings, root causes, risk implications, recommendations, and remediation requirements.

• Develop practical climate and environmental assurance roadmaps that support continuous monitoring, organisational resilience, regulatory readiness, and future sustainability assurance requirements.

Comprehensive Course Outline

Module 1: Foundations of Climate Risk and Environmental Auditing

• Evolution of climate and environmental considerations within enterprise risk management, governance, strategy, operations, and assurance.

• Definitions, principles, objectives, benefits, limitations, and practical applications of climate risk and environmental auditing.

• Understanding relationships between environmental impacts, climate exposure, organisational resilience, financial risks, compliance, and long-term sustainability.

• Roles of internal audit, management, boards, environmental teams, risk functions, compliance, regulators, and external assurance providers.

Module 2: Climate Risk Governance, Strategy and Accountability

• Climate governance structures, board oversight, executive accountability, policies, committees, responsibilities, and reporting arrangements.

• Integrating climate considerations into organisational strategy, risk appetite, business planning, capital allocation, and performance management.

• Evaluating climate policies, governance frameworks, accountability mechanisms, escalation processes, and management oversight.

• Assessing the effectiveness of climate governance through audit criteria, evidence, performance indicators, and resilience assessments.

Module 3: Climate Risk Assessment and Audit Planning

• Identifying physical, transition, regulatory, technological, market, reputational, financial, and strategic climate risks.

• Developing climate risk assessments using exposure, vulnerability, materiality, scenario information, asset location, and business dependency.

• Designing risk-based climate audit universes, engagement objectives, audit scopes, testing procedures, and resource requirements.

• Integrating climate risks into enterprise risk management, internal audit planning, continuous monitoring, and combined assurance frameworks.

Module 4: Physical Climate Risk and Organisational Resilience

• Assessing exposure to extreme weather, flooding, drought, heat, storms, wildfires, water stress, and other physical climate hazards.

• Auditing climate vulnerability assessments for facilities, infrastructure, assets, employees, suppliers, logistics networks, and critical operations.

• Evaluating business continuity, disaster preparedness, climate adaptation, emergency response, insurance arrangements, and resilience controls.

• Using historical events, location information, operational data, and scenario analysis to strengthen physical climate risk assurance.

Module 5: Climate Transition Risk and Decarbonisation Auditing

• Understanding transition risks associated with regulation, technology, market changes, financing conditions, consumer preferences, and low-carbon transformation.

• Auditing climate transition strategies, decarbonisation programmes, emissions-reduction targets, implementation plans, and performance measures.

• Evaluating dependencies on technology, infrastructure, suppliers, energy sources, financing, and organisational capabilities during transition.

• Assessing governance, investment decisions, assumptions, milestones, performance reporting, and escalation processes supporting transition plans.

Module 6: Greenhouse-Gas Emissions and Carbon Data Auditing

• Auditing greenhouse-gas emissions measurement, organisational boundaries, activity data, emission factors, calculations, estimates, and methodologies.

• Evaluating controls over direct and indirect emissions information, including data collection, consolidation, validation, reconciliation, and reporting.

• Assessing emissions-reduction targets, carbon-management programmes, offset-related information, and supporting documentation.

• Identifying emissions data quality risks, calculation inconsistencies, unsupported assumptions, reporting gaps, and weaknesses in evidence trails.

Module 7: Energy, Water and Natural Resource Auditing

• Auditing energy consumption, energy efficiency, renewable energy initiatives, energy procurement, and operational energy controls.

• Assessing water consumption, water efficiency, water availability, wastewater management, and water-related operational risks.

• Evaluating natural resource use, material efficiency, resource dependency, conservation measures, and environmental performance controls.

• Applying analytical techniques to consumption data, usage trends, benchmarks, anomalies, targets, and environmental performance indicators.

Module 8: Waste, Pollution and Environmental Compliance Auditing

• Auditing waste generation, classification, storage, transportation, treatment, disposal, recycling, and waste-reduction controls.

• Assessing pollution prevention and controls covering air emissions, wastewater, soil contamination, hazardous substances, and environmental incidents.

• Evaluating environmental permits, licences, regulatory obligations, inspections, monitoring activities, compliance registers, and corrective actions.

• Investigating environmental incidents, non-compliance events, remediation programmes, root causes, financial impacts, and recurring control weaknesses.

Module 9: Biodiversity, Nature and Ecosystem-Related Risk Auditing

• Understanding biodiversity, ecosystem dependencies, environmental impacts, natural capital considerations, and nature-related organisational risks.

• Assessing organisational exposure to land-use changes, ecosystem degradation, water dependency, resource scarcity, and biodiversity impacts.

• Evaluating controls over conservation, restoration, land management, supply-chain dependencies, environmental impact assessments, and mitigation programmes.

• Examining emerging nature-related measurement, disclosure, data, assurance, and governance challenges affecting internal audit.

Module 10: Environmental Data Governance and Reporting Controls

• Establishing environmental data governance covering ownership, definitions, collection, validation, aggregation, storage, security, and reporting responsibilities.

• Assessing environmental data completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, traceability, comparability, and evidence supporting reported metrics.

• Auditing environmental reporting systems, spreadsheets, databases, calculations, automated processes, assumptions, and information flows.

• Evaluating controls over environmental disclosures, management assertions, estimates, methodologies, reviews, approvals, and reporting changes.

Module 11: Climate Scenario Analysis and Forward-Looking Assurance

• Understanding climate scenario analysis, assumptions, pathways, time horizons, sensitivities, dependencies, and limitations within organisational risk assessment.

• Evaluating scenario-based assessments of assets, operations, supply chains, markets, financing, revenue, costs, and strategic objectives.

• Auditing climate stress testing, resilience analysis, adaptation planning, transition scenarios, and management responses to potential future conditions.

• Communicating scenario results responsibly by distinguishing assumptions, uncertainties, analytical outputs, risk signals, and confirmed audit evidence.

Module 12: Climate and Environmental Data Analytics

• Applying data analytics to emissions, energy, water, waste, environmental incidents, asset exposure, supplier information, and climate indicators.

• Using trend analysis, anomaly detection, benchmarking, predictive indicators, and data visualisation to identify environmental control exceptions.

• Developing climate and environmental dashboards that communicate risk exposure, performance trends, targets, exceptions, and emerging concerns.

• Applying automated monitoring and continuous analytics while maintaining data quality, evidence integrity, access controls, privacy, and appropriate human oversight.

Module 13: Greenwashing, Environmental Integrity and Investigation

• Identifying risks associated with exaggerated environmental claims, unsupported sustainability statements, selective reporting, and misleading performance information.

• Assessing discrepancies between environmental commitments, reported metrics, operational evidence, targets, actual performance, and underlying business practices.

• Applying document examination, data reconciliation, interviews, analytical testing, evidence corroboration, and investigative techniques to environmental allegations.

• Evaluating whistleblowing, complaints, conflicts of interest, incentive structures, governance failures, and escalation mechanisms related to environmental integrity.

Module 14: Environmental Supply Chain and Third-Party Risk

• Assessing climate and environmental risks across suppliers, contractors, logistics providers, manufacturers, distributors, and other third-party relationships.

• Auditing supplier environmental due diligence, contractual requirements, environmental certifications, monitoring, site assessments, and remediation.

• Evaluating supply-chain exposure to climate events, resource scarcity, environmental incidents, regulatory changes, and sustainability performance failures.

• Applying supplier segmentation, environmental risk analytics, third-party monitoring, performance indicators, and escalation procedures to strengthen assurance.

Module 15: Climate and Environmental Audit Evidence, Reporting and Remediation

• Establishing appropriate audit evidence standards for climate data, emissions records, environmental documentation, scenario analysis, and performance information.

• Performing climate and environmental audit testing through interviews, observation, document examination, analytical procedures, sampling, and control evaluation.

• Developing audit findings that clearly connect criteria, condition, root cause, consequence, climate or environmental risk, evidence, and recommendations.

• Monitoring remediation, validating corrective actions, tracking environmental performance improvements, and escalating unresolved material risks appropriately.

Module 16: Advanced Climate and Environmental Assurance Strategy

• Developing an enterprise-wide climate and environmental audit strategy aligned with organisational objectives, risk appetite, resilience priorities, and assurance needs.

• Assessing emerging issues including climate transition, carbon markets, biodiversity, nature-related risks, environmental technology, and evolving disclosure expectations.

• Establishing climate and environmental audit maturity models, implementation roadmaps, capability requirements, analytics strategies, and continuous monitoring programmes.

• Preparing future-ready assurance functions through predictive climate analytics, artificial intelligence, scenario modelling, automated monitoring, and integrated environmental risk intelligence.

Training Approach

This course will be delivered by our skilled trainers who have vast knowledge and experience as expert professionals in the fields. The course is taught in English and through a mix of theory, practical activities, group discussion and case studies. Course manuals and additional training materials will be provided to the participants upon completion of the training.

Tailor-Made Course

This course can also be tailor-made to meet organization requirement. For further inquiries, please contact us on: Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com Tel: +254 721 331 808

Training Venue 

The training will be held at our Upskill Training Centre. We also offer training for a group (at a discount of 10% to 50%) at requested location all over the world. The Onsite course fee covers the course tuition, training materials, two break refreshments, buffet lunch, airport transfers, Upskill gift package, and guided tour.

Visa application, travel expenses, dinners, accommodation, insurance, and other personal expenses are catered by the participant

Certification

Participants will be issued with Upskill certificate upon completion of this course.

Airport Pickup and Accommodation

Airport pickup and accommodation is arranged upon request. For booking contact our Training Coordinator through Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com, +254 721 331 808

Terms of Payment:

Unless otherwise agreed between the two parties’ payment of the course fee should be done 3 working days before commencement of the training so as to enable us to prepare better.