As a registered greenhouse and energy auditor, you must complete at least 15 days or 112 hours of continuing professional development (CPD) every 3 years.
This is a requirement under section 6.65 of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Regulations 2008.
What is continuing professional development?
CPD is an activity that helps you:
- expand your knowledge
- maintain or update your technical skills
- progress your auditing career.
An activity that doesn't directly improve your professional knowledge can't be counted as CPD. You can't count business-as-usual activities as CPD. This includes:
- daily tasks
- paid consultancy work
- standard administration duties.
Requirements for auditors
You must complete 15 days or 112 hours of CPD within each 3-year period of registration. The 3-year period starts on the date you were first registered.
Your CPD should reflect if you specialise in auditing a specific industry or industries. For example, if you specialise in auditing the landfill sector, your CPD should focus on developing your technical knowledge in landfill audits.
For Category 1 auditors, we expect your CPD to focus on developing your technical knowledge in the schemes we administer.
For Category 2 auditors, we expect your CPD to focus on maintaining your skills in audit and assurance. You should also continue developing your technical knowledge in the schemes we administer.
Types of development activities
We accept certain activities as CPD. For some activities, you can report up to a certain number of hours.
This is not a complete list of accepted activities. We may accept other types of activities as CPD. To find out if we'll accept an activity, contact us.
Attending certain events such as a workshop, webinar, forum, convention, seminar or conference. Events should be run by:
- the Clean Energy Regulator
- administrators of state-based schemes
- recognised organisations, accounting bodies and audit firms.
Events should focus on at least one of the following topics:
- audit
- climate change issues
- industry-relevant schemes we administer.
Examples of accepted events include:
- workshops and webinars delivered by us
- Energy Sustainability Schemes auditor workshops
- Carbon Market Institute summits
- waste forums, mining conventions or forestry conferences.
You can watch our CPD webinars on YouTube.
Completing training from recognised providers or professional bodies. For example, audit training delivered by the Institute of Internal Auditors.
Completing in-house training within your own organisation may also count as CPD. For example, internal training in:
- assurance
- audit software
- business writing
- data analytics
- leadership
- professional independence
- risk management
- work health and safety.
Completing study at a tertiary institution. The study should:
- lead to a degree, diploma or post-graduate qualification
- relate to your work as a greenhouse and energy auditor.
For example, university courses in subjects like accounting, engineering and environmental science.
CPD can include time taken to research and write essays.
Completing programmed self-study through a third-party provider. This includes self-study video or audio packages.
For example, a course in:
- audit and assurance delivered by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand in the Graduate Diploma of Chartered Accounting
- advanced audit and assurance delivered by CPA Australia in the CPA Program
- advanced audit and assurance delivered by the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) in the IPA Program
- a technical field that is relevant to schemes we administer, such as engineering.
You can also enrol in the ethics and governance subject, which is part of the CPA Program. We can provide you with an enrolment form for this subject or you can contact CPA Australia.
The area of study must relate to your work as a greenhouse and energy auditor.
Developing or delivering training sessions or courses. These can be either internal or external, for example:
- CPA Working Party on External Assurance Practitioner Certification
- preparing training for internal use.
You can report a maximum of 10 hours per year for this activity.
Publishing professional or academic papers, articles, research and other publications.
For example, an overview of the changing face of corporate risk tolerance for an industry publication.
You can report a maximum of 10 hours per 3-year period for this activity.
Reading technical or professional publications like:
- legislation or guidance related to the schemes we administer
- industry journals
- white papers
- audit and technical-related research articles.
You can report a maximum of 10 hours per year for this activity.
Serving on a technical committee where the objectives are defined. For example:
- accreditation review board for an industry body
- discussion group for an industry body.
The committee should also require specific contributions from members.
You can report a maximum of 10 hours per 3-year period for this activity.
Mentoring a colleague involved in the auditing profession.
You can report a maximum of 10 hours per year for this activity.
We conduct inspections of auditor performance. During an inspection, an approved representative will analyse documents and other evidence and speak with auditors.
Inspections provide valuable knowledge, findings and learning.
If you're being inspected, there is no limit to the number of hours you can report. If you're attending inspections of other auditors, you can report a maximum of 10 hours per 3-year period for this activity.
Reporting development and providing evidence
You must submit an annual report to us every year on the anniversary of your registration.
This report should include a record of CPD you completed in the previous 12 months. This includes:
- a description of each activity
- the relevant dates of the activity
- the organisation that presented the activity
- the number of hours you are claiming for the activity.
You don't need to record a minimum number of hours each year. You must report at least 15 days or 112 hours in a 3-year period.
We can suspend your registration or deregister you as an auditor if you haven't demonstrated CPD.
Requests for additional evidence
Each year we randomly select a sample of auditors to provide additional evidence to support their CPD claims. This evidence can include:
- agendas or syllabuses
- attendance lists or transcripts
- enrolment records or receipts
- assessment reports or certificates
- detailed diary notes
- employer records
- statutory declarations.
We can ask you to provide more evidence under other circumstances. For example, if your CPD includes technical reading, we may ask you to explain how the reading helped your professional development.
Evidence submitted to other professional bodies
If you submitted evidence to another professional body to meet their CPD requirements, you can submit the same evidence to us. The CPD needs to be relevant to the schemes we administer.
Record keeping
Keep your CPD evidence for at least 5 years after the end of the 3-year period when the activities were done.