EMAS

EMAS is a management tool for both manufacturing and service organisations for evaluating, improving and reporting environmental performance.

Although similar to ISO 14001, EMAS is a different standard. It is well recognised throughout the European Union (EU), where one company a day is being certified as EMAS compliant.
In 2010, the EU created a new regulation for EMAS (EMAS 111), enabling it to be used globally.

The four steps to EMAS registration are:

• 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.
• Establish responsibilities within the EMS; set objectives; provide the resources to support the EMS; implement operational procedures appropriate to the objectives; identify training needs and implement monitoring and communication systems.
• Carry out an environmental audit, assessing in particular the management system and conformity with the organisation’s policy and program as well as compliance with relevant environmental regulatory requirements.
• Publish a statement of its environmental performance that lays down the results achieved against the environmental objectives and future steps to be taken to continuously improve the organisation’s environmental performance.