What is EMAS Environmental Certification and How does an EMS Help you to Get it?

The climate emergency in which we find ourselves has forced governmental organisations to create regulations and legislation that are more and more demanding in terms of environmental protection. In addition, society’s increased awareness of the environment makes these demands even more evident.

Consequently, it is essential for any organisation to have global environmental management strategies in place. This makes the use of environmental management standards such as EMAS or ISO 14001 increasingly common among companies.

What is known as EMAS certification is an international, voluntary European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), which allows organisations to assess, report and improve their environmental performance. And although it was created for European-wide recognition, after its revision in 2010, EMAS registration is possible for any organisation worldwide.

But before we continue talking about EMAS, let’s take a moment to review another well-known environmental management standard, ISO 14001.

The ISO 14001 standard aims to help companies implement an Environmental Management System (EMS) that allows them to identify and manage environmental risks as a consequence of their activity.

An important feature of this ISO is the application of the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) methodology, which is followed by most ISO standards. In addition, because it has concepts, structures and terminology common to other ISO standards of different scope, the fact that your organisation already has some ISO certification makes it easier to implement others.

For example, if your company already has ISO 50001, which certifies the implementation of an energy management system, it will make it easier to obtain ISO 14001.

It is very common that many organisations that already have ISO 14001 want to obtain the EMAS certificate as well. On the one hand because, if your organisation already has this ISO it will be easier to comply with the requirements of the EMAS Regulation, as they are based on the same PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) methodology. And on the other hand, because the EMAS certificate has a higher image of excellence.

And what is the difference between EMAS and ISO 14001?

One of the main differences between EMAS and ISO 14001 is that, in order to be part of the EMAS registered organisations, an environmental statement is required, which must be validated by an external verifier annually, which makes it more demanding. ISO, on the other hand, does not require this periodic review.

Find out the 10 Steps to EMAS Certification and How Energy Efficiency can Help you

1. Contact your competent authority. The first step of all to become EMAS registered is to contact your local competent authority. They will provide you with all the information, technical support and even information on what funding options are available to you.

2. Carry out an environmental audit of your organisation. This step is necessary to identify the most significant environmental problems caused by your organisation’s activities. It will also help you establish benchmarks against which to measure future success in reducing your impact. 

3. Plan the environmental policy and programme to be followed. In other words, you will need to define the structure of your Environmental Management System (EMS). Here we recommend that you have an expert in the field.

4. ​​Implement your Environmental Management System. This step will take some time in your organisation, but planning ahead will make it much easier.

5. Check the effectiveness of the implemented Environmental Management System by internal audit. Once the EMS has been implemented you will need to monitor the processes to evaluate the results. In this way you will be able to control the main indicators required by EMAS, which you will later need in the environmental report that your organisation must deliver for external validation. 

On the other hand, this monitoring step will allow your organisation to detect deviations in the indicators and the targets set for each one. Giving the opportunity to take corrective actions in advance.

Interested in discovering the following steps? Read the entire article here