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.