Brussels, 12/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Community Environmental Management and Audit System (EMAS) recently extended to all organisations - industrial or otherwise - wishing to reduce the impact of their activities on the environment, will be implemented in the near future by the European Commission. This was decided by the Community Executive, at an initiative by Neil Kinnock, Vice President of the Commission responsible for administrative reform, and Margot Wallström, European Environment Commissioner. The decision that had been adopted along these lines aims to improve the Commission's environmental results, mainly in terms of energy saving, and comes within the reform process underway at the Commission. In concrete terms, the Secretariat General, the Directorate General for the Environment and the DG Administration will serve as pilot fields for this experience. Assessment of all the environmental aspects of their activities will be carried out in order to identify those which have the greatest impact on the environment. Environmental targets will then be fixed for a period of two years for these same activities. After this time, an assessment of the results will allow the system to be extended to all the Commission's activities.
In a press release, Margo Wallström states: "With EMAS, we wish to be an example to the other public authorities and economic agents". Neil Kinnock added that the application of EMAS would strengthen the Commission's commitment to ensure that its administration is environmentally friendly.
EUROPE recalls that the new EMAS regulation (No761/2001 of 19 March 2001) extends the scope of the system for constant improvement in the environment performance of companies and organisations that hope to take part on a voluntary basis. The regulation covers in its text the essential elements of the EN ISO 14 0001 norm for facilitating the implementation of environmental management requirements by the organisations, and control of results by an independent and qualified body.