What is EMAS?

EMAS is the acronym for Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, a management tool for voluntary use by businesses and other organisations, making it possible to assess, improve and publicise their environmental behaviour.

EMAS companies and organisations are characterised by their voluntary effort to protect the environment, beyond compliance with environmental legislation. This effort is recognised by the European Union with the following logo.

How to obtain EMAS

To receive EMAS registration an organisation must comply with the following steps:

• Conduct an environmental review considering all environmental aspects of the organisation’s activities, products and services, methods to assess these, its legal and regulatory framework and existing environmental management practices and procedures.
• In light of the results of the review, establish an effective environmental management system aimed at achieving the organisation’s environmental policy defined by the top management. The management system needs to set responsibilities, objectives, means, operational procedures, training needs, monitoring and communication systems.
• Carry out an environmental audit assessing in particular the management system in place and conformity with the organisation’s policy and programme as well as compliance with relevant environmental regulatory requirements.
• Provide a statement of its environmental performance which lays down the results achieved against the environmental objectives and the future steps to be undertaken in order to continuously improve the organisation’s environmental performance.

The environmental review, EMS, audit procedure and environmental statement must be approved by an accredited EMAS verifier, and the validated statement needs to be sent to the EMAS Competent Body for registration and made publicly available before an organisation can use the EMAS logo

Source

EMAS web page of the European Community, for more information see