Improving the effectiveness of project assessment - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 351

approach to organizations' operations through EMS. EMS is now seen as good practice
and has mostly subsumed environmental auditing.
This section reviews existing standards on EMS, briefly discusses the application of
EMS and environmental auditing by both private companies and local authorities and
concludes by considering the links between EMS and EIA.
11.4.1 Standards and regulations on EMS
Two EMS standards apply in the UK: the EC's Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
(EMAS) of 1993, which was revised in 2001, and the International Organization for
Standardization's ISO series 14000. A third early standard, British Standard 7750, was
withdrawn in 1997. EMAS and ISO 14001 are compatible with one another, but differ
slightly in their requirements.
The EC's EMAS scheme was adopted by EC Regulation 1836/93 in July 1993 (EC
1993), and became operational in April 1995. It was originally restricted to companies in
industrial sectors, but since the 1993 regulations were replaced in 2001 by Regulation
761/2001 (EC 2001a) it has been open to all economic sectors, including public and
private services. It is a voluntary scheme and can apply on a site-by-site basis. To receive
EMAS registration, an organization must:
• Establish an environmental policy agreed by top management, which includes
provisions for compliance with environmental regulation, and a commitment to
continual improvement of environmental performance;
• Conduct an environmental review that considers the environmental impacts of the
organization's activities, products and services; its framework of environmental
legislation; and its existing environmental management practices;
• Establish an EMS in the light of the results of the environmental review which aims to
achieve the environmental policy. This must include an explanation of responsibilities,
objectives, means, operational procedures, training needs, monitoring and
communication systems;
• Carry out an environmental audit that assesses the EMS in place, conformity with the
organization's policy and programme and compliance with relevant environmental
legislation; and
• Provide a statement of its environmental performance which details the results achieved
against the environmental objectives, and steps proposed to continuously improve the
organization's environmental performance (EC 2001b).
The environmental review, EMS, audit procedure and environmental statement (ES) must
be approved by an accredited eco management and audit scheme (EMAS) verifier. The
validated statement must be sent to the EMAS competent body for registration and made
publicly available before an organization can use the EMAS logo. In the UK the
competent body is the IEMA (EC 2001b). Although EMAS was originally oriented
towards larger private organizations, it can also apply to local authorities and smaller
companies. The DoE/Welsh Office's Circular 2/95 discusses EMAS for local authorities,
and the Small Company Environmental and Energy Management Assistance Scheme was
established in November 1995 to help companies with fewer than 250 employees to carry
out EMAS.