Greenlines Newsletter

Happy 2001!!

Dear colleagues,

The millennium year has passed and we find ourselves at the beginning of the year 2001. This year is going to be an important year for us. In October 2001 the Working Group has the opportunity to present itself to the entire INTOSAI community at the XVIIth INCOSAI in Seoul. On the basis of our presentation, a decision will be taken about the continuation of the Working Group. Furthermore, before the meeting in Seoul, there will be another (already the seventh) meeting of our Working Group.

In this Green Lines some issues regarding the meeting in Seoul, and the upcoming meeting of the Working Group will be highlighted. A time table will be included. I will also draw your attention to the new website of the Working Group.

I wish you all the very best, good health and a sparkling future for the year 2001!!

Saskia J Stuiveling

New website for the Working Group on Environmental Auditing

In June 2000 we informed you that the secretariat was in the process of revising the website of the Working Group on Environmental Auditing. It took a little longer then we expected, but we now are proud to present the new website.

www.environmental-auditing.org

PLEASE NOTE: The address of the website has changed!! It is no longer directly attached to the website of the Netherlands Court of Audit. The reason is that when the SAI of the Netherlands no longer acts as Chair of the Working Group, the website must continue. In the new set up, it will be simple to transfer the maintenance of the website to another SAI.

What has changed on the website?

First of all, the visual appearance of the website has changed quite a bit. This also includes the visual navigation between the frames that together make up the website. In general it can be said that the website now meets the latest (visual) standards.

To give you an indication of what the website now looks like, below you see the first screen when you surf to the website. The middle and right hand side of the screen is reserved for text, the left hand side for navigation between frames.

A second change is that a "regionalisation" page is added to the website. From this page there are direct links to the websites of the co-ordinators of the regional Working Groups on Environmental Auditing. Below you see this new page.

Thirdly, and finally, the way certain information, such as the environmental reports, can be reached has been made more accessible. The bibliography of SAI's environmental audit reports is updated and extended. It now contains over 1100 reports published since 1994.

What has not changed?

The substantive content of the website has not changed. It basically contains the same information, but that information is updated, amended and adjusted (when necessary).

Try it and give us feedback!!

We hope you will be able to take some time to look at the new website. If you have comments, remarks, questions, please let us know. If at all possible, we will do our best to adapt the website according to your wishes.

Preparationfor the XVIIth INCOSAI in Seoul

We have started making the first preparations for the XVIIth INCOSAI, October 2001 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. In comparison to the INCOSAI of 1998 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the preliminary programme of the INCOSAI meeting in Seoul contains an unexpected "surprise": there are only 10 minutes of time available for the (plenary) presentation of the Working Group on Environmental Auditing. This gives us only just about enough time to read the "Five Pages" in which the past achievements and future developments are summarised. An elaborate presentation as was held at the previous INCOSAI is not a part of the programme.

To find a solution for this matter, we have contacted the committee that prepares the INCOSAI-meeting. We have asked the committee to provide our Working Group with an exposition room in the conference centre, that can be used for a couple of days during the meeting. Our plan is to use this exposition room to present our Working Group to the entire INTOSAI-community. How this should be done exactly is of course not clear yet. It also depends on whether or not we are granted an exposition room.

We will keep you informed!

Seventh meeting of the Working Group

Place and time of the meeting

The next meeting of our Working Group will be held just before the INCOSAI meeting in Seoul. The meeting will be hosted by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, and will be held in Ottawa, Canada

The venue of the meeting is not known yet, but most likely it will be a hotel in central Ottawa, close to the buildings of the federal Parliament. The meeting will be held during the last week of September in 2001, more precisely from Monday 24 september to Wednesday 26 September 2001.

Circulation of documents preceeding the meeting

The following documents have already been sent to you until the end of 2000:

• draft minutes of the Working Group meeting in Cape Town;
• Booklet of Posters presented in Cape Town;
• draft INTOSAI booklet "Guidance ...";
• draft Working Group document "Sustainable development";
• draft Working Group document "International Environmental Accords to Audit".

Coming to you in the first part of 2001 are:

• draft Working Group document "Results of the third survey on Environmental Auditing";
• Proposal for the future of the Working Group, including new draft resolution for the INTOSAI Congress;
• draft "Five Pages" in which the past achievements and future developments of the Working Group are summed up;
• draft Work Plan for the Working Group on Environmental Auditing, for the period between 2002 and 2004 (INCOSAI Budapest Hungary).

We would like to ask you to look at these documents carefully, and then reply to us with your remarks and/or questions as soon as possible. That will ensure that we will be able to process all the information in time.

Possibility for meeting of the regional Working Groups

The Chair of the EUROSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing, the SAI of Poland, has expressed the wish to have a seperate meeting with the members of the EUROSAI Working Group that are present in Canada for the meeting of the INTOSAI Working Group. It is possible that members of other regional Working Groups also would like to take this opportunity to meet separately with the SAI's of their own region thata re present in Canada. We have therefore decided to facilitate some time in the preliminary programme (see below) of the Ottawa meeting some time for such 'contact' meetings.

If other regional Working Groups are interested in such a meeting, please inform us about your plans as soon as possible.

Preliminary agenda for the meeting of September 2001

The Seventh meeting of the Intosai Working Group on Environmental Auditing will be held in Ottawa, Canada. At this stage only a preliminary programme is ready. We have enclosed this programme here to give you an idea of what can be expected.

Staff to Mrs. Stuiveling

Mrs. Saskia van der Haagen has taken up a new job in the Netherlands Court of Audit. In the staff to Mrs. Saskia Stuiveling, she will be replaced by Mrs. Bernadette Schomaker. Mrs. Schomaker is a senior policy officer at the Unit International Affairs of the Netherlands Court of Audit. She can be reached as follows:

Tel: +31 70 342 4392

Fax: +31 70 342 4411

We thank Saskia van der Haagen for her activities for the Working Group, and we wish Bernadette Schomaker all the best in her new role.

The best way of reaching the staff of Mrs. Stuiveling is to send an email to: environmental.auditing@ rekenkamer.nl

For your information, we also give an overview of the current team of staff members, their main activities and email address: