Environmental Liabilities Course

About the Course

With the development of Federal environmental laws, new accounting principles and stakeholder expectations have become part of the ASTM Standard setting activity. This course reviews five key ASTM documents covering the valuation, settlement and reporting of all types of environmental liabilities. Any scientific, project management, legal or accounting specialist seeking to grow within the strategic framework of a larger organization will improve their understanding of the challenges of environmental liabilities and how to address them.

ASTM Standards Referenced

The Environmental Liabilities course begins at 8:30 am and includes the following sessions:

• Module One: Recognition and Derecognition of Environmental Liabilities
• Module Two: Valuation of Environmental Liabilities
• Module Three: Disclosure of Environmental Liabilities
• Module Four: Disclosures Related to Climate Change and Emerging Contaminants
• Module Five: Due Diligence Procedures for Environmental Liabilities
• Module Six: Environmental Knowledge Management

A lunch break will be held from 11:45 am until 1:00 pm

The class will conclude at 4:00 pm

Audience

Attendees should include those providing estimation, valuation, auditing and attestation to one or more portfolios of environmental liabilities (asset retirement obligations, environmental obligations, commitments, contingencies and guarantees)

• Corporate officers performing financial reporting or due diligence responsibilities
• Members of due diligence or purchase price accounting teams
• Members of corporate or government agency remedial project teams
• Members of legal and accounting teams
• Members of investment banking and merger/acquisition/spinoff teams
• Members of real estate teams acquiring, redeveloping or selling environmentally-impaired properties
• Individuals providing support services to any of the above

Learning Outcomes

Module One: Recognition and Derecognition of Environmental Liabilities

• identify the five types of environmental liabilities (E3123)
• create and manage a watch list of unbooked environmental liabilities
• identify six types of funding used to settle environmental liabilities: asset retirement costs, provisioned/reserved environmental costs, ordinary operating expenses, capital expenditures, second-party control/payment, third-party reimbursement
• identify conditions and transactions causing liability recognition
• construct and manage a pre-recognition Watch List
• Identify conditions and transactions causing liability derecognition
• Construct and manage a post-settlement Watch List

• reliably value environmental liabilities, and communicate estimates for wide range of purposes
• demonstrate correlation between spending and reductions in booked environmental liabilities
• report reliable valuations of environmental liabilities
• apply the Watch List in valuation
• perform event tree, probabilistic modeling, peer reviews and other method of valuation to validate calculations of Watch List items

Module Three: Disclosure of Environmental Liabilities

• evaluate past reports of environmental liabilities
• use common terminology for summarizing portfolios of environmental liabilities
• combine portfolios or liabilities following mergers, acquisitions and divestitures
• report progress in managing environmental liabilities
• apply the Watch List in disclosure

Module Four: Disclosures related to Climate Change

• identify environmental liabilities related to climate change
• develop response options leading to disclosures
• develop common disclosure statements and options
• combine portfolios or liabilities following mergers, acquisitions and divestitures
• report progress in managing environmental liabilities
• apply the Watch List in disclosure

Module Five: Due Diligence Procedures for Environmental Liabilities

• competency in reporting environmental liabilities for due diligence purposes
• enable user to demonstrate gap between booked (reserved) liabilities and the fair value used in due diligence
• identify any/all of five types of environmental liabilities at each location
• determine obligating events and recognition benchmarks for each location
• settle on single (multiple) discount rates, currencies, regulatory frameworks for baseline
• document baseline reserve (provision), operating expenses, capital expenditures, asset retirement obligations, third-party recoveries
• document escalation risks to Watch List
• following transaction close, recalculate all values during purchase accounting period based on new information provided by acquire liabilities' managers

Module Six: Environmental Knowledge Management

• understand the value of retaining specific areas of environmental liability management experience for future use
• understand the types of knowledge to regularly collect and catalog
• understand the best practices and lessons learned in records storage and sorting

Certificate and CEUs

Upon successful completion of this course, learners will receive a certificate of completion with 0.6 CEU's.

Certification Preparation

This course serves a prerequisite for the Environmental Liabilities Certification program.

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