Boosting Regulatory Advantages Vis vis Emas Registration

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BACKGROUND

Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is an EU-level management tool designed to help registered organisations enhance their environmental performance and credibility. The EMAS scheme operates through incentives that reward organisations that make commitments to sustainability. The European Commission has initiated a process to improve and simplify existing environmental legislation. One aim is to encourage more organisations to join voluntary environmental certification schemes such as EMAS. Reducing the administrative costs and burdens for EMAS-registered organisations would help achieve this aim and enable a more efficient implementation of environmental legislation. This approach was previously applied in the B.R.A.V.E. project (LIFE10 ENV/IT/000423), of which this project, B.R.A.V.E.R. is a continuation.

OBJECTIVES

The main objective of the LIFE B.R.A.V.E.R. project was to support the full integration of EMAS into EU environmental legislation, by reducing and simplifying the administrative costs and burdens of EMAS-registered companies. B.R.A.V.E.R. planned to carry forward the activities of the earlier LIFE project, B.R.A.V.E. by encouraging the adoption of measures for regulatory relief to support EMAS adoption in more countries, regions and sectors. In particular, the project aimed to test and disseminate a new approach to EMAS, outlining new opportunities to promote the adoption of ‘soft instruments’ among companies, including SMEs. This new method is based on evaluating new regulation and regulatory relief proposals, and assessing their feasibility and their cost-effectiveness for organisations and institutions through regional and national testing. The impact of project actions on EMAS-registered companies would be analysed in terms of solving problems targeted and improving environmental performance.

Specifically, the project aimed to demonstrate that:

‘Better regulation’ in environmental policies is possible if voluntary certification schemes are effectively and proactively used in the development of new legislation and in the revision of existing legislation;

These measures are feasible for all EU Member States and practicable at the EU regulatory level, in terms of improved policy development and ease of policy implementation, to eliminate barriers to the adoption of EMAS and other environmental certification schemes;

The adoption of an environmental management system can be a strong guarantee that a company is able to comply with environmental legislation;

Organisations that apply voluntary certification schemes, such as EMAS, deserve administrative regulatory relief and incentives (e.g. permits), as this can lead to a better and more efficient application of environmental policy;

The implementation of ‘better regulation’ and ‘regulatory relief’ can lead to benefits and advantages to both public and private sector organisations; and

A ‘virtuous cycle’ can be created, in which companies are strongly incentivised to adopt voluntary schemes.

RESULTS

The LIFE B.R.A.V.E.R. helped increase the adoption of ‘regulatory relief’ measures for EMAS-registered organisations in the participating countries and regions: Emilia-Romagna in Italy; the Basque Country, Catalonia, Madrid and Andalusia in Spain; the Czech Republic; Slovenia and Cyprus. These measures support the introduction of environmental management systems certification schemes. The project also demonstrated that better regulation measures can be introduced to the framework of environmental policies, if voluntary schemes, such as EMAS Registration and ISO 14001 Certification, are effectively considered when developing new laws or amending existing ones.

The project proposed that those companies applying voluntary certification schemes are awareded a series of economic and non-economic benefits, such as extensions to the validity of permits/authorisations, reduced reporting and monitoring requirements, presumption of compliance with environmental legislation or reduced inspections, fiscal relief or reduction of the due financial guarantees. Furthermore, the project was able to identify and develop effective measures for better regulation and regulatory relief for EMAS-registered organisations and tested their effectiveness, usefulness and related benefits.

The main achievement was the adoption of 24 EMAS regulatory relief measures, more than the 16 foreseen, with further proposals to be adopted in the near future. A total of 40 simplification proposals were tested in the participating territories (25 proposals were foreseen) and 80 EMAS simplification proposals were drafted (70 were foreseen).

In terms of policy impact, a key outcome of the project was the development of the Guidance Tool for EMAS-based Regulation and Better Regulatory Relief, which includes a detailed description of 39 EU Recommendations and 40 additional measures at national and regional level.

A training and communication campaign was carried out in each territory, allowing a high level of involvement of stakeholders such as EMAS-registered organisations and companies, EMAS verifiers, regional/national agencies and departments of environment, trade associations, industrial cluster associations, municipalities and public authorities.

As for the demonstration value, the new approach to valorise EMAS and to promote the adoption of “soft instruments” has proved to be successful not only in the territorial and political framework of the project, but in other geographical areas where EMAS is not widely known and/or where no or very few regulatory relief measures exist.

Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).