EMAS II and regulatory relief in Europe: lessons from national experience

Apart from Germany and Austria, corporate participation in the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) has remained sluggish and far behind involvement in ISO 14001. Given the lack of response in most EU Member States, the key issue of the current EMAS revision is to increase the incentives for companies to join the Scheme. One of the proposals in this respect is to encourage Member States to consider a lighter regulatory touch for EMAS participants. The aim of this article is to assess the extent to which encouraging regulatory relief may contribute to an increase in the number of EMAS registered companies. For this purpose the regulatory relief already offered to EMAS registered (and ISO 14001 certified) companies in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are described and analysed. Based on this experience, the central conclusion of the article is that regulatory relief can increase participation in the EMAS and is particularly successful if it is significant and at best integrated into a comprehensive voluntary policy approach aimed at altering the traditional relationship between Government and industry. However, against the background that some countries treat EMAS registration and ISO 14001 certification as equivalent with respect to regulatory relief, even those deregulation measures that fulfil the above conditions may lead to an increase in ISO 14001 certifications rather than EMAS registrations. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 9274(2000,4) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

Limits and Borders: Stages of Transboundary Water Management

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