The European Environmental Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is a voluntary EU scheme for companies and organisations that are committed to the environment and to assessing, managing, and improving their environmental performance.
EMAS is the ideal tool for meeting these challenges. Established by the European Commission through a specific EMAS Regulation, it helps organisations to improve their environmental performance, save energy and optimise the use of resources. It is a first-class management tool for assessing, reporting, and improving the environmental performance of organisations. It aims to guide organisations towards a circular economy and reduce their environmental impact. One of the key features of EMAS is the regular monitoring and verification of environmental performance through systematic monitoring, the establishment of performance indicators and audits. This helps organisations to remain accountable and transparent and to improve their overall environmental performance.
EMAS is a voluntary instrument. Participation in the scheme is open to all economic sectors. EMAS identifies different areas of economic sectors using the "Statistical Classification of Economic Activities (NACE) codes".

The current consolidated version of Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 on EMAS is from 12.07.2023 and introduces several new elements that improve the applicability of the scheme and its credibility. EMAS is the most credible and sustainable environmental management system (EMS) that adds additional elements to the requirements of the international standard for environmental management systems standard ISO 14001:

• More stringent requirements for measuring and evaluating environmental performance against objectives and targets, and for continual improvement of that performance;
• Compliance with environmental legislation ensured by government oversight;
• Increased employee involvement;
• Consistent environmental indicators that provide comparability on a multi-year basis within and between organisations;
• Informing the public through the certified environmental statement;
• Registration by a public authority following verification by an accredited or licensed environmental verifier.

The general procedure for EMAS implementation follows 6 mandatory steps:
Each EU Member State has designated a competent body responsible for registering organisations and for providing information to stakeholders, including information on the incentives available to EMAS-registered organisations. In Bulgaria, the Competent Body is the Ministry of Environment and Water.
Further information on the Scheme can be found HERE.

CONSEJO has extensive expertise in the field of environmental management systems, gained through many years of working with clients, and can advise on the implementation of EMAS through all 6 steps.