| Summary: | The Swedish government decided in 1996 that the governmental authorities are to implemement environmental management systems. Each year, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency compiles the authorities’ reports on their environmental management systems. The compilation shows that not more than 20 % of the authorities perform environmental audits. This study aims to investigate the authorities’ view of internal environmental audits, the incentives of performing them. It also investigates if the environmental audits contribute to continuous improvements. The study is a case study of nine participating authorities that all reported to have performed environmental audits in 2005. The interviews were analysed based on the extent of the internal environmental audits. The result shows that three of the nine participating authorities did not perform any environmental audit at all. The results suggest that the incentives of the greatest importance for internal environmental audits in the other six authorities are external requirements, mainly requirements in ISO 14001, as well as commitment in environmental issues among the employees and the organisational management. The study also suggests that continuous improvement is a result of the internal environmental audit. This is mainly due to the increased environmental awareness within the administration and because of the continuous improvement of the environmental management system.
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