mr president european legislation was set to encourage enterprises to improve their products and obtain higher standards of energy efficiency and environmental compliance
ecolabelling as a part of the eu action plan on sustainable production consumption and industrial policy is such a tool
and so is emas the eco-management and audit scheme
it is about striking a balance between regulatory and market-based instruments with the aim of developing voluntary standards for various products and services or helping to optimise production processes and make more effective use of resources
now the problem is how modern technologies can be used for environmental protection and how industry or services should be helped in promoting the environmental value of the production
the goal of ecological certificates is to engage synergies with other legal acts that are tackling environmental aspects of the products
emas is saving resources among them water
from past experience we know that certificates at various levels were not sufficiently coordinated
existing voluntary and regulatory instruments were not linked to each other in order to establish synergies
first revision of the emas scheme was not encouraging
it was initially expected that emas-registered companies would have performed better since the emas environmental requirements are tougher as compared with older and better-known certificates such as iso fourteen thousand and one
yet emas-registered companies were not performing better and the system of environmental excellence was weaker as compared with the iso fourteen thousand and one
the commission found reasons for the lack of success the system is too tough too expensive and too complex and has proposed acceptable simplifications
the rapporteur mrs mcavan added valuable additional modifications
among them is a line in the definition of emas which i saw as particularly important
it would help organisations to proceed more easily from iso to emas standards
i am confident that our amendments have made the commission proposal for the regulation better and that we have brought it closer to users
an impartial system of certification will be we suppose appreciated also by consumers
i hope that this will help organisations to choose the most rational systemic approach in order to interconnect different fields of environmental protection
