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EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)

Official description of the guidance

The EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is a management tool for companies and other organisations to evaluate, report and improve their environmental performance. The scheme has been available for participation by companies since 1995 and was originally restricted to companies in industrial sectors.

Since 2001 EMAS has been open to all economic sectors, including public and private services.

In 2009 the EMAS Regulation was revised and modified for the second time. Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) was published on 22 December 2009 and entered into force on 11 January 2010.

Its aim is to recognise and reward those organisations that go beyond minimum legal compliance and continuously improve their environmental performance. In addition, it is a requirement of the scheme that participating organisations regularly produce a public environmental statement that reports on their environmental performance. It is this voluntary publication of environmental information, whose accuracy and reliability has been independently checked by an environmental verifier, that gives EMAS and those organisations that participate enhanced credibility and recognition.

Environmental management has become a core business issue for many organisations. Minimising the amount of waste that is produced, reducing energy consumption and making more efficient use of resources can all lead to financial cost savings, in addition to helping to protect and enhance the environment. EMAS is strongly backed by Government and the environmental regulators – organisations that participate are recognised as making strong commitments to the environment and to improving their economic competitiveness.

Link to the guidance

Our synopsis

An EMS is a powerful tool for the identification and management of environmental risks. It also provides a mechanism for delivering performance improvements, effecting resource savings and promoting environmental best practice.

There are two main EMS standards to which an organisation can receive external certification: the EU-based Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and the International Standard ISO 14001: 2004. Both Standards represent best practice in environmental management and have been widely accepted by UK businesses.

EMAS is based on an EU Regulation and has been operative since 1995. The main difference between EMAS and ISO 14001 is that EMAS requires a formal initial environmental review and the additional production of a periodic public environmental ‘statement’ (in reality, a detailed report), which describes an organisation’s environmental impacts and data, its environmental programme, the involvement of stakeholders and progress in achieving improvement in performance.

The REMAS project showed that the adoption of an accredited certified environmental management system improves site environmental management activities and that there is evidence that overall environmental management is better under EMAS than under other systems. A study in October 2009 reinforced this view.

In 2009 the EMAS Regulation was revised and modified for the second time. Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) was published on 22 December 2009 and entered into force on 11 January 2010. Changes from the previous version are as follows:

• Transitional registration procedures to facilitate introduction of EMAS III.
• Revised audit cycles to further improve applicability for small organisations.
• Single corporate registration to ease administrative and financial burdens on organisations with sites in more than one Member State.
• Cluster approach to provide specific assistance to clusters of organisations in the development and implementation phases of EMAS registration.
• Environmental core indicators to thoroughly document environmental performance and to help organisations apply adequate indicators.
• Reference documents to provide guidance to organisations and to facilitate practical implementation of EMAS requirements.
• Single EMAS logo to communicate EMAS in one coherent and distinctive way.
• ‘Global EMAS’ to encourage global uptake of the scheme by making EMAS certification possible for organisations and sites located outside the EU.
• Information and promotion activities of EU Member States and European Commission to support EMAS III.

Currently, more than 4,400 organisations and approximately 7,600 sites are EMAS-registered.