British, Irish and Spanish standards recognized under the Community Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
The European Commission has decided to recognize British, Irish and Spanish national environmental management standards under the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) established in 1993. This means that companies, in these three countries, wishing to participate in EMAS can now refer to national standards for environmental management in order to qualify under the European scheme. The Community Eco-Management and Audit Scheme is a voluntary environmental management scheme open to companies in the industrial sector. The overall objective of the scheme is to promote continuous environmental performance improvements in the industrial sector by encouraging companies to evaluate and improve their environmental performance and provide relevant information to the public. Companies who wish to be registered in the scheme must have their environmental policy, programme, management system and review or audit procedures examined in order to verify that they meet EMAS requirements. This verification must be carried out by an independent, appropriately accredited, environmental verifier. The verifier is also responsible for validating company environmental statements. The first EMAS verifiers were accredited in July 1995 and the first site registrations in the scheme took place in August. To date, in excess of 300 applications for accreditation as verifiers have been received. This is a clear indication of the demand from industry for verification. In excess of 41 verifiers and 100 sites are currently registered in the scheme. Verifiers have been accredited in seven EU Member States (UK, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweden, France and Austria) and sites registered in eight (UK, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, The Netherlands, France and Sweden). In addition, both verifiers and sites have been registered in Norway, which is linked to EMAS through the EEA agreement. It is anticipated that the numbers will grow rapidly over the coming months now that verifiers are in place. In connection with this, a common European environmental management standard is under preparation and is expected to be ready by mid-1996.
Countries
Spain, Ireland, United Kingdom