Results and Findings

RESULTS ON THE LINK BETWEEN EMS AND PERFROMANCE (BASED ON DATA FROM 320 SITES IN EUROPE)

In summary the project measured the relationship between implementing different types of EMS and;

  • The change in behaviours at a site, (defined as site environmental management activities)
  • The impact of these on emission levels, (benchmarked against best available techniques)
  • Compliance with legislation.

Behaviours are measured against those expected on a well managed site as defined by IMPEL (European network of regulators). Collectively these are known as the remas criteria

Compliance is measured using dimensions of;

  • Improved self knowledge of permit breaches (better detection usually means increased numbers of non-compliances)
  • Compliance management (better management leads to reduction of non-compliance events).

Summary results are as follows:

Environmental management systems and site environmental management

  • There is strong evidence that the adoption of an accredited certified EMS improves site environmental management activities. Overall environmental management is better under ISO14001 than under an informal system; which in turn is better than under no system at all.
  • There is evidence that overall site environmental management is better under EMAS than under ISO14001; driven largely by better performance in performance monitoring, documentation control and (self) reporting of environmental performance.

Environmental Performance

  • There is some evidence that improved site environmental management leads to lower average emission levels. However, the strength of the evidence differs significantly between receiving media, regions of Europe and sectors.
  • There is strong evidence that improved environmental management has an impact on the number of self recorded permit / licence breaches. The impact may be observed both positive (i.e. reducing the number), or negative (i.e. increasing the number), and varies between regions and sectors.

The mix of positive and negative impacts for the two compliance indicators demonstrates that improved site environmental management results both in a reduction of the rate at which "non-compliance" incidents (such as permit breaches) occur and in an improvement in the detection and reporting of incidents when they do occur. Where the scale of the first impact outweighs the second, the overall impact on the compliance indicator is positive. Where the reverse it true, the impact is negative.

A full summary of the findings is available in newsletter 12 and on a two page factsheet