Entrusted by international clients, we have reviewed a large number of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects in Africa in recent years, indirectly helping to improve the quality of drinking water for about 4 million Africans. Since 2020, auditors have been unable to fly overseas to perform on-site audits due to the neo-crowning epidemic that has swept the world. In order to ensure that the audit progress is not affected by the epidemic and that the project can continue to serve the community, we decided to change the on-site audit to a remote audit in accordance with the spirit of the latest meeting of the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board (CDM-EB).
Recently, our company successfully completed the first remote audit of the Uganda Clean Water CDM project. Because the project involves the audit teams interview and investigation of purified water drinking ratio, water quality test and key parameters, the CDM-EB has not issued specific specifications for remote audit of this complex project. Therefore, how to verify the authenticity and accuracy of the data and ensure that the audit process strictly meets the requirements of CDM is the key to the success of this audit. The project audit team focused on the temporary requirements for remote audit issued by the CDM-EB, referred to the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) remote audit guidelines and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) remote audit guidelines, developed a complete remote audit plan in advance, compiled a detailed questionnaire, and improved the list of audit questions.
At the first video conference, the audit team emphasized to the project implementation party (EA organization) the scene, location and GPS information and on-site telephone interviews of photos and videos collected during the survey site, as well as epidemic prevention requirements such as maintaining social distance and wearing masks.
After the first meeting, EA organized and arranged personnel to carry out on-site investigation of the project, verify the information of water use points, carry out water quality tests and other work, and collected about 4GB of photos and video materials. During the EA site investigation, the audit team conducted daily video/telephone interviews with the respondents, and recorded/recorded the case file.
At the final meeting, the audit team reported the process, results and audit findings of this remote audit, and said that the audit work has achieved phased success, requiring all parties to rectify non-conformances in a timely manner.
The successful implementation of this remote audit, our professional technical strength and service awareness has been fully recognized and praised by the Uganda EA Organization and the Swiss Pure Water Company, laying a solid foundation for further cooperation. The company will continue to provide professional audit and certification services in the field of climate change and clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, actively implement the "Belt and Road Initiative" initiative, and fulfill the social responsibility of certification bodies.
