A records-and-site-visit environmental review to the ASTM E1527 standard that identifies recognized environmental conditions without any physical sampling.
The longer version
The consultant reviews regulatory databases, historical uses, and prior reports, walks the site, and interviews people who know it. The deliverable flags recognized environmental conditions, RECs, that suggest a release may have occurred.
A clean Phase I supports the innocent landowner defense and closes the environmental checklist line. A REC pushes the deal to a Phase II with actual sampling, which adds weeks, so environmental is ordered as early as anything in diligence.
In Prodeal
In Prodeal it is a checklist line with a status, a due date, and a responsible party. The executed version lands in the deal's document set and carries into the closing binder.