Austrian enterprises: demonstrating environmental excellence
EMAS award for Bernhard-AV, honorary mention for Magna Steyr
The EMAS awards for best environmental management were presented in Bilbao on 25th November.
This most prestigious award for organisations that review and improve their environmental performance is organised by the European Commission every two years. The theme for the 2019 edition of the EMAS awards was ‘EMAS as driver of change’. The winner is the Austrian Company Bernhard-AV. The world’s first EMAS-registered company in the field conference and congress technology was able to win against four contestants from four countries. The automotive supplier Magna Steyr was honored with a honorary mention for ist eco-management. All in all, 27 European organisations participated in the EMAS awards, including two other Austrian participants, namely Vienna’s main wastewater treatment plant ebswien hauptkläranlage Ges.m.b.H. and OSI Food Solutions Austria GmbH&Ko KG.
EMAS stands for Eco-Management and Audit Scheme. It is a voluntary instrument developed by the European Commission to support enterprises and organisations of every size and sector to continually improve their environmental performance. Participating organisations communicate their performance in the form of an environmental statement that is examined and validated by an independent environmental verifier.
New impetus for EMAS through ENHANCE
With the Environment Agency Austria, enterprises wishing to reorganise or improve their environmental management system will find a helpful partner. Austria’s leading organisation of environmental experts supports enterprises that wish to be assessed as EMAS-registered organisations. The Environment Agency Austria maintains the EMAS register and operates the EMAS helpdesk together with three other organisations. With partners from Austria, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic and Estonia, the Environment Agency Austria takes care of the further development of EMAS at international level. The project ENHANCE (EMAS as a Nest to Help And Nurture the Circular Economy) aims to provide incentives and simplifications for EMAS-registered organisations, for the benefit of all users of the EMAS environmental management system. For this purpose, best practices from Austria, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic and Estonia, are shared and developed further. In Austria, ENHANCE has given the impetus to changes in the trade law, providing for simplifications of audits for EMAS-registered organisations.
Environment Agency and EMAS
The Umweltbundesamt, the Environment Agency Austria, has been EMAS registered since 2005 and has published the environmental statement every year. As of 2020, the scope of the environmental statement will be expanded. It will take the form of a comprehensive sustainability report, which will provide full details of the contributions of Environment Agency Austria to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
