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17 April 1997 Doc. 7800
ADOC7800
REPORT1
on establishing international standards for
assessing the environmental impact of industrial enterprises
(Rapporteur : Mr Jean-François LE GRAND,
France, European Democratic Group)
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Summary
Industrial enterprises, which represent one of the major factors in the deterioriation of the environment, should be more actively involved in environmental management. To supplement existing compulsory standards, some countries and the European Union have already taken various initiatives to encourage voluntary measures by enterprises to protect the environment. However, if limited to only part of Europe, such measures may be less effective and lead to unfair competition.
It is therefore advisable that measures of this kind be harmonised and introduced progressively in all European countries, in particular in the central and east European countries where environmental "culture" has not yet taken root and where firms may, under the pressure of reforms, yield to the temptation of "ecological dumping".
The Parliamentary Assembly invites member states to raise economic operators' awareness of the problems of environmental management and thus encourage them to take active, voluntary measures to protect natural resources and to harmonise their laws and their systems for evaluating environmental data.
The Assembly also invites the central and east European countries to take greater account of environmental factors when implementing economic reforms and industrial reorganisation by giving preference to schemes which further sustainable development.
Draft recommendation
1. The direct or indirect pressures placed on the environment by industry make it necessary to introduce regulatory mechanisms that encourage businesses to take an active role in environmental management.
2. Growing public awareness of threats to natural resources make it possible to introduce voluntary standards which, combined with compulsory measures, can help businesses manage their environment, raise the awareness of and train their staff, improve their industrial performance and at the same time contribute to sustainable development.
3. The Assembly welcomes the steps taken by the European Union in this regard, notably the directive on impact studies and the introduction of voluntary measures which can be applied under the ECO-audit regulations and are designed to enable firms in the industrial sector to participate in a Community Environmental Management and Audit Scheme.
4. It also welcomes the launching by the European Commission of a specific pilot programme to help small and medium-sized firms develop a system which would make them eligible for the Community Environmental Management and Audit Scheme.
5. Environmental damage in the countries of central and eastern Europe is currently one of the major problems facing the international community and calls for the implementation of specific measures.
6. The current resources and pollution level of the countries of central and eastern Europe, the precarious state of their economies and the decisions that confront them in this transition period require action at all levels in order to achieve a balance between the implementation of measures to contain environmental damage and measures for satisfactory economic development.
7. Moreover, the transition towards a market economy may have extremely serious effects on the environment in the countries of central and eastern Europe, which, if not assisted, could repeat the mistakes made by western countries in the past and whose problems could be aggravated by the fact that in the face of economic and social difficulties, environmental problems often take second place.
8. Furthermore, significant differences between the environmental standards of the CEEC and western Europe could give rise to ecological dumping with economic activities such as waste production or storage being re-located from western to central and eastern Europe.
9. Most of the countries of central and eastern Europe have similar environmental problems and it is therefore vital that the different groups in society address them as a matter of priority. In particular, action should be taken to establish positive, systematic links between economic development and the environment.
10. Following the example of successful initiatives within the European Union, action should be taken to raise the awareness of, inform and involve the relevant groups and to encourage them to take voluntary measures. There should also be compulsory measures resulting from the signature of existing European and international conventions and the enactment of national regulations and laws.
11. The Assembly considers that industrial undertakings in the central and east European countries should be encouraged to adopt environmental management systems which, without matching the level currently required within the European Union, would launch a process in keeping with these countries' future accession to the European Union - membership of which would involve, inter alia, the adoption of Community regulations on the environment.
12. It would be useful to draw upon the European Union's experience in this respect, giving priority to raising awareness among firms of the importance of voluntary measures and the justification for a system of collective environmental management through the application of binding instruments such as conventions.
13. Due heed must also be paid to the problem of transfrontier pollution and consequently to the application of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transfrontier Boundary (Espoo Convention).
14. The harmonisation of legislation is all the more necessary in this respect as differences between individual countries may not only lead to unfair competition (ecological dumping) but also have major repercussions on the operation of economic mechanisms and damage to the environment.
15. The Assembly is, however, aware that harmonisation, which must be rational and economically viable, should be achieved in stages and take account of differences between countries, of economic disparities and different economic and social needs.
16. Moreover, any policy encouraging the harmonisation of standards for auditing the environmental impact of industrial activities requires standardisation of the definitions of sources of pollution and the methods used to measure them, which could be incorporated into a common database.
17. With this in mind, priority should be given to defining the parameters by which to measure the ecological pressure exerted by transport, water use and pollution, energy use, waste production and so on.
18. The Assembly is, moreover, convinced of the role local authorities can play in the complementary actions undertaken at different levels and of the need to give them the institutional and financial means to take action in the field of environmental management.
19. It cannot be overlooked in this respect that the financial and institutional independence of local authorities in the countries of central and eastern Europe varies and this disparity in the exercise of responsibilities is bound to affect the quality of environmental management.
20. Consequently, the Assembly can only reiterate its concern that governments take measures to give local authorities financial autonomy and sufficient powers to ensure appropriate management of their environmental problems.
21. The Assembly considers that the Council of Europe, in line with its generally recognised sphere of activities, can play a key role in information, awareness-raising and training for various groups, and in harmonising legislation and drafting conventions.
22. In view of the foregoing, the Parliamentary Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers:
i. provide, as part of intergovernmental sector activities, awareness-raising, information and training for the economic sectors of countries outside the Community and especially those of central and eastern Europe, in order to encourage the introduction of voluntary measures which, combined with the application of compulsory measures, will help institute a system of environmental management by companies;
ii. instruct the competent committees of governmental experts to devote some of their activities to the harmonisation of:
a. environmental laws and regulations in non-Community countries, with a view to facilitating the future inclusion of these countries in the Community Environmental Management and Audit Scheme and to avoid ecological dumping;
b. the fundamental principles governing the assessment of environmental impact in order to achieve optimal application of existing instruments and agreements;
iii. ask the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe to continue to pay special attention to the achievement of genuine local autonomy that gives local authorities sufficient powers and resources to exercise their environmental responsibilities;
iv. call on all member state governments:
a. to ensure that the necessary conditions are created for the optimal application of environmental conventions signed and ratified by them;
b. to highlight, within European and international organisations and institutions which implement industrial restructuring programmes in the central and east European countries, the need to give priority to projects which support sustainable development;
c. to encourage industrial firms to adopt voluntary standards for effective environmental management;
d. to modify the legislation in order to authorise the territorial authorities to apply environmental criteria to their purchasing and tendering procedures so as to encourage local business to adopt more environmentally sensitive working methods;
v. invite the governments of the countries of central and eastern Europe:
a. to adapt existing or enact new environmental legislation which would allow them to sign and ratify conventions to which they are not yet parties;
b. to take account of environmental management principles in all decisions concerning industrial enterprises by adopting, for example, a framework of standards corresponding to the current national economic situation, but which could evolve to meet European standards;
c. set up national awareness-raising and training programmes for the relevant groups - the general public, firms, local authorities - so that voluntary commitment can reinforce the results of compulsory measures.
Contents
1. Introduction 8
2. The current situation 8
2.1 General context 8
"An Environment for Europe" 8
The bases of a legal framework governing transfrontier pollution 10
2.2 Measures that are binding on firms 10
Council Directive of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of
certain public and private projects on the environment 10
Convention on Civil Liability for Damage Resulting from
Activities Dangerous to the Environment 11
2.3 Voluntary measures applying to firms 12
The Community EMAS, or ECO-audit, regulation 12
The ISO 14000 series of international standards 13
The work of the CEN: a bridge between EMAS and ISO 14000 14
3. Proposals 15
3.1 Can and should the ECO-audit regulations and the European
directive on impact studies be extended beyond the European
Union? 15
Assessing the environmental impact of industrial undertakings in
the countries of central and eastern Europe 15
Proposals 16
3.2 Increasing public involvement 17
Raising awareness 17
Encouraging participative democracy 18
Internalising environmental costs into the prices of products 18
3.3 Involving small and medium-sized enterprises 18
Learning from the Euromanagement programme 18
3.4 Assessing an industrial plant's overall impact on the environment 20
Performance indicators which could be validated by audits 20
The relative merits of simple, but also simplistic, and exhaustive
and complex systems 24
3.5 The role of local authorities 24
Local authority support for firms adopting an EMAS 24
Giving environmentally sensitive firms preference in public tenders 25
Applying EMAS to local authorities 25
Giving local authorities appropriate environmental powers 25
4. Conclusion 26
5. Bibliography 27
1. Introduction
The threat posed by industry to the environment is both direct - the discharge of air and water pollutants, soil contamination, the generation of waste products, particularly dangerous ones, high noise levels and the use of natural resources in the productive process - and indirect - the consumption and use of industrial products and transport; firms therefore have to be encouraged to manage their environment. An increasing general awareness of the problem has made it possible to combine binding regulations with voluntary standards and norms, which alone can ensure proper sustainable development.
Such standards pose two challenges for Europe:
- the need for harmonised standards to avoid distorting competition and enable consumers to choose products in full knowledge of the facts and to give preference to firms that respect the environment;
- to help the countries of central and eastern Europe to introduce environmental management into their industrial enterprises while remaining economically viable; what makes such support particularly important is that it will help these countries to avoid irreversible environmental changes in a difficult economic climate, reduce the level of resulting transfrontier pollution and prevent the risk of ecological dumping.
The latter risk is all too real. Just as western countries' use of ships flying flags of convenience has encouraged the adoption of very poor employment conditions and standards, so a failure to persuade the countries of central and eastern Europe to gradually conform to European environmental standards could lead to the development of areas and zones which attract polluting enterprises and waste disposal activities.
2. The current situation
2.1 General context
"An Environment for Europe"
The European Community's environmental and sustainable development policy and action programme "Towards Sustainability", also known as the "Fifth Action Programme on the Environment", was adopted on 18 May 1992. Its objective is to achieve optimum environmental protection in the European Community by 1 January 1999.
However, in its updated report of 10 November 1995 on the state of the environment, the European Environmental Agency concludes that in the absence of additional measures the objectives set in 1992 for the year 2000 will not be met. The report on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and European Council concerning a review of the "Towards Sustainability" programme therefore emphasises the need for more detailed and properly timetabled Community policies to make the process more credible and ensure that priorities are met.
Three proposals are critical if firms are to manage their environments effectively:
- comparable and reliable data, statistics and methods are required to improve the basis for environmental policy; this will make it possible to assess the costs and benefits of taking action or failing to act in the environmental field and to establish an environmental auditing system by 1999;
- before the year 2000, a Community action programme must be established to abolish all assistance in the energy sector which promotes the consumption of polluting forms of energy at the expense of cleaner sources, to the extent that the latter are economically viable, introduce energy efficiency standards for equipment and encourage clean technologies by means of financial assistance and by ensuring that environmental costs are reflected in products' prices;
- all the regulations designed to reduce industrial emissions and pollution must be fully applied; the programme must incorporate the polluter-pays principle more fully into the relevant legislation, particularly by making it a statutory requirement throughout the European Union to compensate for any damage caused to the environment.
There are two main vehicles through which the Fifth Environmental Action Programme is applied.
The Ecological Programme for Europe
This programme, the European version of the Rio Agenda 21, was approved at the 1995 Sofia Conference and sets out guidelines for the region's sustainable development, particularly through the integration of environmental policy into all sectoral development policies. Two aspects are particularly important:
- access to environmental information and public participation in decision making;
- the ratification of international legal instruments concerning the environment and their application.
The Environmental Action Programme for Central and Eastern Europe
This was developed by the OECD and the World Bank and was launched at the 2nd Lucerne Conference in 1993. The initial results were examined in Sofia.
The programme identifies a common approach and two main objectives:
- to develop the existing positive links between economic and environmental development;
- to establish east-west partnerships in central and eastern Europe between local authorities, institutions and firms.
The eventual aim is to merge the two approaches.
The bases of a legal framework governing transfrontier pollution
Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution
This Convention was drawn up under the auspices of the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe and signed in Geneva in 1979. It came into force in 1983 and was the first legally binding international instrument on air pollution on a broad multilateral basis. In accordance with the Convention, a European monitoring and evaluation programme (EMEP) of the long-distance transport of air pollutants makes it possible to analyse and assess the level of air pollutants in Europe in the light of agreements on reducing emissions.
Protocols to the Convention have been signed on sulphur, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs); these provide for uniform rates of reduction of, or even the possibility of a freeze on, emissions, whereas a second generation of protocols, based on the notions of critical load and viability, is intended to provide optimum solutions to the problem of combatting pollution. The protocol on the reduction of sulphur emissions or their transfrontier flows by at least 30% came into force in 1987 and has already led to substantial reductions in such emissions in Europe.
Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes
This Convention was adopted in Helsinki in March 1992 and is intended to strengthen international and national efforts to protect and rationally manage water resources.
Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context
This was signed in Espoo (Finland) in 1991 and came into force in 1996. It is the first multilateral instrument to set out governments' rights and obligations regarding the transfrontier environmental impact of their activities.
Convention on the Transboundary Impact of Industrial Accidents
This was signed in Helsinki in 1992, with a view to encouraging intergovernmental co-operation to counter the effects of industrial accidents.
2.2 Measures that are binding on firms
Council Directive of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment
This directive makes it mandatory to assess the effects of projects, particularly industrial ones, on the environment in order to protect human health, improve the quality of life and preserve biodiversity and ecosystems.
To enable such assessments to take place, a developer must provide:
- a description of the project
- the data required to identify and assess the main effects the project is likely to have on the environment
- a description of the measures envisaged to avoid, reduce and, if possible, remedy significant adverse effects.
In the light of the experience gained from six years' application of the directive, the signing of the Espoo Convention and the political commitment to incorporating environmental protection into other Community policies, in 1993 the Commission issued proposals for modifying the directive.
In a report of 11 October 1995, the European Parliament adopted a number of amendments on:
- the directive's scope.
Its applicability was extended to include national defence projects and Community and national programmes, including those introduced by special legislation.
The list of activities that had to be the subject of an assessment was extended and the assessment had to be carried out by independent experts registered in a list of teams or companies specialising in environmental impact studies drawn up by the member states.
- common criteria for defining sensitive areas
- limiting exemptions to exceptional cases which could be challenged by members of the public
- increasing information to and consultation with citizens
Ex post scrutiny is now possible.
- considering the zero option in impact studies.
Convention on Civil Liability for Damage Resulting from Activities Dangerous to the Environment
This Convention reflects one of the Council of Europe's objectives regarding individuals' quality of life, particularly through environmental protection.
The Convention is designed to ensure rapid and adequate, though not retroactive, compensation for damage resulting from environmentally dangerous activities and also provides for means of prevention and reinstatement. The aim is to establish a system of objective liability based on the polluter-pays principle, which means making the person exercising control of an activity at the time the damage was caused liable to pay compensation.
It also incorporates machinery to make it easier for victims to establish a causal relationship between an event and any damage suffered and provisions to offer greater access to information.
An activity is deemed to be dangerous if it is preformed professionally and involves dangerous substances or dangerous genetically modified organisms or micro-organisms. The concept also covers waste material, other than nuclear substances regulated by the Vienna Convention of 21 May 1963 or the Paris Convention of 29 July 1960.
The damage concerned may result from either an immediate event or continuing pollution.
In view of the international character of the risk associated with dangerous activities, the Council of Europe has opened the Convention to signature by non-member countries.
2.3 Voluntary measures applying to firms
In the environmental field, firms and businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the financial and regulatory threats facing them, but also of the opportunities that are being opened up.
In response to firms' genuine commitment to voluntary action, a number of optional measures have been drawn up. This contractual approach is more effective than binding regulations in making companies aware of their environmental responsibilities and bringing about the sustainable development of industry.
The Community EMAS, or ECO-audit, regulation
As part of its "Towards Sustainability" programme, the Commission stresses firms' role in and responsibility for not only strengthening the economy but also protecting the environment throughout the Community. To that end, the Council of the European Communities introduced the ECO-audit regulation, which provided for firms in the industrial sector to participate voluntarily in a Community environmental management and audit scheme (EMAS).
The scheme's objective is to promote continuous improvements in industry's environmental performance by:
- the establishment and implementation of environmental policies, programmes and management systems by companies in relation to their sites in order to reduce their impact on the environment to what is economically viable using the best techniques available;
- the systematic, objective and periodic assessment of the performance of such measures using audit procedures;
- the provision of information on environmental performance to the public.
Introducing an environmental management and audit scheme enables a company to progress from an essentially static to a dynamic form of environmental management.
On the basis of a pilot programme, it has been possible to assess the factors influencing firms' willingness to take part in the scheme.
The size of companies, and thus their financial and human resources, are critical in determining whether they will participate. Thus, textile firms, which are traditionally small and medium-sized enterprises, are very much under-represented whereas the motor industry, which is organised on a much larger scale, is considerably more involved.
Most of the firms taking part in pilot projects were already aware of environmental problems. Some of them found it easy to adapt on account of their experience of outside communication; thus, while the majority of companies experienced difficulties in drawing up their environmental statements, the chemical industry adapted rapidly to the requirements.
The pilot project showed, however, that the particular industry concerned was much less important as a factor than its geographical location. Ten times as many German sites are already registered than those of other member states, probably as a consequence of the federal system, strict environmental legislation, the support of local commercial associations and the country's well-established environmental culture.
The ISO 14000 series of international standards
The ISO2 undertook certain introductory work in this field between 1991 and 1993. There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, environmental management was becoming increasingly common in large firms. Moreover, countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and France were planning to establish national standards, while the European Union was drawing up the Ecolabel and ECO-audit regulations. There was therefore an increasingly urgent need to harmonise these approaches, particularly as other countries might view such developments as technical barriers to trade3. One further reason for developing the standards was the success of the ISO 9000 series in the quality management field.
ISO standard 14001, like its national predecessors X 30-200 in France and BS 7750 in Britain, lays down various principles for an environmental management system. These can form the basis of a certification system by a third party or a self-declaration. The principles are supplemented by appended explanatory notes.
The standard is complemented by ISO standard 14004, which is non-certifiable and which contains practical details to help put the system into operation.
These two standards serve as references for internal and external audits and are at present backed up by three standards dealing with environmental audits:
- ISO 14010: principles of environmental audit
- ISO 14011: audit practice in small and medium-sized enterprises
- ISO 14012: auditors' qualifications .
ISO standard 14001, the final version of which is dated October 1996, is concerned both with reducing unintended by-products, such as various forms of pollution, by controlling production processes, and with managing products' life cycles. The collective nature of the commitment entered into has led to the adoption of the continuous improvement principle, since apart from requirements laid down in formal regulations, the needs of the relevant parties are rarely explicit, and can therefore never be considered fully met.
The ISO 14000 standards offer a guarantee of recognition and acceptance by the different interests concerned and have the advantage of consistency:
- over time, since if standards are revised, it is over a sufficiently long period to avoid the need for firms to adapt too rapidly;
- geographically, since the ISO standards apply potentially throughout the world.
Far from conflicting with the European EMAS regulation, the ISO standards will facilitate its application. The European Commission has actually called for the drafting of such standards, the use of which is explicitly provided for in the application of the European regulation.
The work of the CEN: a bridge between EMAS and ISO 14000
To avoid the proliferation of national standards in Europe, which could lead to conflicting practices, the Commission has asked the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), which brings together the eighteen national standardisation bodies of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association, to prepare a series of single Community standards.
In its technical report no XXX, the CEN concluded that it would be inappropriate to draw up distinct European standards for compliance with EMAS, since they would largely reproduce the draft ISO standards. From a harmonisation standpoint this is a particularly attractive proposition, since it opens up the prospects of both European and global standardisation. However, the Community regulation includes a number of specific features, such as the publication of environmental statements, participation confined to industrial enterprises and the non-recognition of self-declaration.
Firms which wish to use standard ISO 14001 as a basis for registration with EMAS will therefore have to demonstrate that the standards are applied in accordance with the European regulation's requirements. To assist them, a form of bridging document - technical report no XXX - outlines the main differences between the standard and the regulation, including:
- environmental management and audit aspects of EMAS which are not dealt with explicitly in the ISO 14000 standards;
- areas where there is no precise match between the ISO standards and the EMAS requirements;
- EMAS requirements that go beyond the scope of the ISO 14000 standards.
3. Proposals
3.1 Can and should the ECO-audit regulations and the European directive on impact studies be extended beyond the European Union?
Assessing the environmental impact of industrial undertakings in the countries of central and eastern Europe
The threat of irreversible environmental damage in central and eastern Europe
The move from central planning to a market economy may have irreversible effects on the environment of central and eastern Europe. In the absence of any support, the countries concerned could make the same mistakes in their economic development as their western counterparts and then have to meet the cost, which would be significantly higher than that of preventive action.
In most of these countries, for example, industry is meant to store any dangerous waste products until a proper management system has been established. The risk of permanent soil, or even underground water, pollution is thus very high.
The risk of transfrontier pollution
The DOBRIS assessment highlights the very high risks of transfrontier pollution emanating from central and eastern Europe:
- air pollution: major industrial restructuring will be required if energy efficiency is to be significantly increased. The main environmental consequences of energy production are air pollution, acidification, climate changes and damage to the ozone layer.
- water pollution: industrial discharge of water is a major source of pollution in the Danube basin. Large scale industrialisation took place at a time when the environment was not a major preoccupation and industrial and sewage treatment processes are generally outdated. The economic cost to today's privatised firms of pretreatment is such that they generally empty their sewage directly into ill-equipped drains.
If a European environmental policy is to bear fruit, therefore, central and east European countries must be encouraged to join in agreements concerning impact studies and help firms to establish standards and environmental management schemes, in order to integrate them into an ongoing improvement process.
Since countries that are applicants for EU membership will be required to adopt all Community environmental regulations as a condition for joining, they will be encouraged to invest in the environmental field.
The economic and ecological risks of environmental dumping
Unless the principles of the ECO-audit regulation and impact studies are extended to central and eastern Europe, there will be a risk of environmentally damaging forms of production and a threat to western Europe's economic survival by the establishment of an area close to the European Union where it will still be possible for polluting industries to set up or relocate.
Proposals
The creation of a favourable environment
The central and east European countries nearly all face similar problems. It is therefore crucial for co-operation between these countries in the context of Europe-wide agreements to be continued and strengthened.
Given the social and economic problems of central and eastern Europe, environmental issues are in danger of playing a very subsidiary role in local eyes. Yet without local support, it will be impossible to introduce any lasting forms of protection. It will therefore be necessary to increase the level of environmental awareness among all the relevant groups, be they local and regional authorities, firms or the general public.
In order to reduce pollution emissions, central and eastern European governments should be ready to adopt standards which correspond to their current economic circumstances and can eventually be brought into line with general European norms. One possible development could be to open certain European environmental agreements and directives, such as the environmental impact directive, for their signature, as the Council of Europe has done with the Convention on Civil Liability for Damage Resulting from Activities Dangerous to the Environment.
Technological assistance and monitoring aid
Compared with its counterparts in western Europe, industry in central and eastern Europe is generally very inefficient in terms of energy and raw material consumption. In order to avoid pollution, the squandering of resources and more and more waste materials, it will need to be restructured, with western technological support. Yet in its 1995 report on the environment in Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly expressed concern that certain governments seemed more interested in exporting their "environment" industries' products and equipment than in the well-being and environment of the peoples of central and eastern Europe. Some form of monitoring of technical assistance is therefore called for.
Financial measures and monitoring aid
Even though most of the financing in the central and east European countries must be internal, it is currently insufficient to cope with the region's serious environmental problems. External funding will continue to play an extremely important part in the years to come.
As part of the "Environment for Europe" process, the PHARE and TACIS programmes allow the environment to be taken into account at an early stage. Another interesting incentive for certain countries could be the right to convert debt into environmental investments, thus benefiting both creditor and debtor countries.
However, great care must be taken to ensure that any financial assistance granted is the first step towards more environmental forms of production and is not in conflict with the overall policies of the European Union and the Council of Europe. Aid-giving countries must therefore harmonise and offer back-up to their assistance, and the use of the funding must be monitored and co-ordinated.
Encouraging central and east European firms to adopt economically viable environmental management systems
Thanks to policy and price reforms and measures introduced within various industrial plants, significant progress has been made in certain countries in economising on energy, reducing waste and using less polluting methods of production, although some beneficial effects are the consequence of a decline in production rather than investment to protect the environment.
Clearly, the countries of central and eastern Europe cannot yet hope to match the level of environmental management in the European Union, but urgent steps are needed to get the process under way. One possibility would be to lay down an economically tolerable baseline from which firms would undertake to continuously improve their environmental management - the principle that underlies the ECO-audit regulation and the ISO 14000 standards - until they became eligible for an EMAS. Steps must also be taken to ensure that these measures do not encourage west European firms to relocate.
Statutory measures
Differences between individual countries' legislation on assessing the environmental impact of proposals, and particularly between western and central and east European countries, could lead to unfair competition and have a direct impact on the functioning of the Common Market.
Technical assistance with harmonising, enacting and applying environmental legislation is thus particularly important. This could be one of the subjects of the Council of Europe's legal assistance programme.
3.2 Increasing public involvement
Raising awareness
Action to protect the environment can only be effective if the general public are properly aware of the issues. Environmental information, education and training are therefore particularly important.
The Council of Europe has already adopted three important recommendations concerned with education:
Recommendation No R (81) 9 on environmental education
Recommendation No R (90) 17 on the inclusion of environmental education in agricultural training at secondary level
Recommendation No R (91) 8 on the development of environmental education in school systems.
Reference should also be made to the Council of Europe's information campaign "1995: European Nature Conservation Year".
Encouraging participative democracy
Active public participation in environmental protection ensures that environmental policy becomes an integral part of all areas of policy. It also helps to re-establish public confidence in industry. Again, it has to be made possible.
Such participation depends firstly on public access to environmental information. The European Parliament's resolution on the 1995 Sofia ministerial conference on the environment invited the countries taking part to start negotiating a European convention on access to environmental information. This would be a significant step towards involving the public.
Public participation also requires people to be granted a role in the decision making process. The principle of participative democracy to which European institutions play such lip service should entitle members of the public to express their views and, where appropriate, contest the decisions of the relevant authorities via a system based on a second expert opinion.
So long as the information supplied is objective and adequate, public participation in environmental decision making through the medium of a national commission for public debate, as has been proposed in France by the so-called Barnier Act, would undoubtedly represent a fruitful development.
Internalising environmental costs into the prices of products
The objective of "true pricing" is an important weapon in the environmental protection armoury. Internalising the environmental costs of products enables consumers to choose more rationally and therefore offers firms a financial inducement to adopt an EMAS.
The Commission's 1993 white paper on growth, competitiveness and employment also sets out to stimulate debate on possible fiscal reforms, such as the introduction of ecotaxes and other measures to encourage environmentally appropriate behaviour.
3.3 Involving small and medium-sized enterprises
Learning from the Euromanagement programme
The European Commission drew up this pilot project to help small and medium-sized enterprises to take part in the Community's environmental management and audit scheme.
Although in principle it was voluntary, the sector saw the regulation as a potential threat in so far as major private or public purchasers might force sub-contractors or suppliers to register with the scheme. They were worried that such participation would necessitate complex management systems that were incompatible with their organisational flexibility and simplicity, to supplement those already required to manage quality.
The aim of the programme was therefore to develop an appropriate Europe-wide method applicable to small and medium-sized enterprises that wished to take part in the scheme, assist the firms concerned and identify the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities created and the needs for adjustment occasioned by the scheme.
The programme has been tested with a limited number of small and medium-sized enterprises. The majority of those taking part agreed that the scheme's major benefits for such firms were the organisation of their environmental management, the greater awareness of staff and improved industrial performance.
Nevertheless, by the end of the pilot project, the firms had formulated a number of demands, particularly concerning the rules governing co-operation between participants in the scheme and national institutions. The main issues concerned:
- defining the role of those responsible for monitoring the scheme vis-à-vis the national legal system
Should they contact the relevant authorities if they discovered a breach of the legal requirements? The fact that this was not answered clearly in certain countries discouraged firms from participating in the scheme.
- co-ordinating public financial assistance at both national and local levels for firms taking part in the scheme
The constraints most commonly cited by firms were the cost involved in making the necessary investment and the lack of financial and commercial incentives. Commercial pressures now seem to be increasing, particularly when a large undertaking joins the scheme and also asks its suppliers to join. Nevertheless, financial assistance will be necessary to persuade small and medium-sized enterprises to join the scheme.
- regulating the publication and dissemination of the environmental statement
Many firms are far from convinced of the value of disseminating information through an environmental statement and confuse it with a technical document used for certifying the undertaking. It would therefore be very helpful if the first participants' formal environmental statements could be widely circulated so that other firms can be made more aware of what they involve.
- understanding and interpreting the rules (how to define and quantify continuous improvements, the independence of internal auditors, etc) and identifying an appropriate organisational structure (integrating the scheme into other management systems, particularly those concerned with quality). A suitable advisory structure is critical.
It is very important for the EMAS to be actively promoted. Because it is a voluntary policy, firms need to be informed and persuaded of the benefits of setting up such a scheme. Most of the pilot projects have shown that the main factor restricting firms' involvement is the lack of information about the scheme.
3.4 Assessing an industrial plant's overall impact on the environment
Performance indicators which could be validated by audits
The need to standardise the definition of sources of pollution and the methods used to measure them
The first problem with defining indicators of industrial undertakings' environmental performance is the absence of reliable and comparable terminologies or data collection methods (cf the Dobris Assessment). Before indicators can be defined they first need to be standardised.
The development of standards will also allow them to be incorporated into a data base, thus permitting improved access to uniform data on raw materials, widely used substances and so on.
According to the Commission, environmental data on products' total life-cycle must be collected on an international scale, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation and the ISO, in such a way that whatever the country of origin the same type of information is available. This would allow products' environmental characteristics to become a factor in international competition.
More generally, the supply of comparative data on the various national environmental standards in Europe should also be formalised4.
The need to define indicators by source of pollution
Indicators can first be defined according to firms' level of consumption of resources such as air, water and energy and the efficiency with which they are used in the industrial process.
Energy use and air pollution
Great strides were made in improving energy efficiency in western Europe after the oil crises but there has been little or no progress since. In central and eastern Europe the current decline in energy use is predominantly the consequence of local economic difficulties.
In many industrial sectors the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy, heat, steam or other forms of power has the greatest impact on the environment. Gas, which produces less carbon dioxide - CO2 - per unit of energy, is being used increasingly in Europe, but in central and eastern Europe solid fuels are still the principal local resource. One possibility therefore is the use of indicators that take account of the relative use of fossil fuels and gas and energy efficiency/air emissions.
There is little available information on the relative contributions of the various industrial sectors to air pollution. Reference can however be made to:
- CO2 production, particularly in the cement industry, which has a greenhouse effect;
- methane emissions arising from coal mining;
- dust emissions in power stations and industries in central and eastern Europe where filters are not installed;
- heavy metal emissions in the iron, steel and non-ferrous metal industries;
- sulphur and fluoride emissions in the glass and ceramic industries;
- VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions in the solvents industry;
- nitrogen oxide emissions from the high temperature combustion of fossil fuels.
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) play an important role in the production of photo-oxidants and smog and together with sulphur oxides are a cause of acid rain. Both have damaging effects on the environment and human health. VOCs are, together with nitrogen oxides, the main causes of photochemical atmospheric pollution.
Three types of air pollution indicators might be envisaged:
- indicators relating to local air pollution
SO2, NO2 and suspended particulate matter concentrations currently serve as indicators of outside air quality (see OECD Compendium 1995).
- indicators relating to international or global air pollution
SO42- and NO3- are typical indicators of the risk of acid rain. CO2, CFC and methane concentrations show how far firms are contributing to the greenhouse effect.
- indicators relating to pollutants that pose a particular threat to human health
This is the case with carbon monoxide (CO), which prevents red blood cells from absorbing oxygen, and heavy metals.
Water consumption and pollution
Many industries are based on water resources, including chemical and petro-chemical plants, refineries, the pharmaceutical industry, iron and steel manufacturing, the wood, paper and pulp industries, the agri-foodstuffs sector, paints, plastics and tanneries.
Water pollution takes two forms:
- Water pollution through the discharging of wastes
The relevant indicators could be the lead, cadmium, chrome and copper concentrations in the waste, since these are pollutants that are extremely toxic for water-based flora and fauna, and the level of organic material in this waste, particularly in the case of the agri-foodstuffs sector, since discharged organic matter consumes oxygen from the water.
- Water pollution through the discharge of industrial cooling water directly into rivers and streams: its high temperature reduces the solubility of oxygen in the water and accelerates the decomposition of organic material, which reduces oxygen concentrations still further. The temperature of the discarded waste can therefore be put forward as a pollution indicator.
Given the difficulties associated with the notion of a threshold value for polluting substances, it would be more appropriate to define an acceptable risk (zero risk being Utopian). This concept should then be carefully explained to the public to avoid its being rejected.
Secondly, account must be taken of industry's use of transport, particularly road transport, which is a particularly important source of pollution in the west, waste production and the percentage that is recycled.
Pollution generated by transport, particularly road transport
The relocation of firms to new industrial sites outside of towns and cities and the development of a door-to-door service based economy have greatly increased the number of departure and arrival points for goods. Moreover, the desire to limit stocks has led to a reduction in delivery sizes and a concomitant increase in their frequency. In the absence of an alternative mode, road transport is constantly expanding.
The ecological pressures of road transport include the restructuring of the environment as a result of the creation of a road network, the consumption of natural resources such as land, raw materials and energy and the generation of various forms of air, water and noise pollution in the use of this network and various negative effects on the quality of life, such as traffic congestion and accidents.
In the European Union (see the Dobris Assessment), transport is responsible for 25% of energy-related CO2 emissions, of which road transport accounts for 80%. If this trend is confirmed, emissions will increase by a further 25% between 1990 and 2000, and by still more in the central and east European countries. Forty-five percent of nitrogen oxide is attributable to transport in 20 European countries. The largest volumes of toxic emissions arising from transport are those of CO (90% of the total in certain countries) and VOCs: 35-40% of the total.
There is thus a pressing need to persuade firms to make less use of road transport. This calls for alternative means of transport, whose use by firms is both practicable and economically viable. In this context, the reorganisation of rail transport is critical if firms are to have access to multi-modal forms of transport.
One first step could be to include an appropriate indicator for transport in the EMAS.
Waste pollution
Industrial waste production has increased throughout Europe. By the end of the 1980s it was reaching 330 million tonnes a year in the European OECD countries and 520 million tonnes in central and eastern Europe. A growing volume of this waste is considered to be dangerous.
Most waste products are dumped, often leading to contamination of the air, surface and underground water and the soil, the use of valuable space, smells and aesthetic damage. The cost of incineration and public opposition has put a brake on the use of this technique. Efforts to reduce waste and foster recycling are always offset by the growing rate of production.
The volume of waste products by category (organic, inorganic, dangerous, etc) and the percentage recycled could be useful indicators.
The quality of the environment
The risks posed by an activity depend not simply on the characteristics of that activity but also on the sensitivity of the surrounding environment. To take account of this risk, insurers have adopted DSP - danger, sensitivity, prevention - analysis, represented by the equation: Risk = danger x (sensitivity - prevention). Thus for any given level of danger, the greater the sensitivity of the environment the more prevention is required.
The danger criterion
The parameter D, the source of the pollution, corresponds to the risk posed by the products present on the site, be they raw materials, finished products, waste products or technical fluids. To measure this criterion, products are listed in four danger categories, ranging from low to very high, according to their toxicity for humans, their ecotoxicity and their life-cycle. The quantities of the products by class are aggregated by adding the weighted sum of each product. The result gives the overall danger of the site on a scale of one to four.
The advantages of the D criterion are the fact that it is independent of the activity, objective, reproducible and consistent with the IPCE classification system for dangerous plants. However, it also has the disadvantages of any general indicator: relativity (the classification of sites on a scale) and aggregation (the same value may conceal different profiles).
The sensitivity criterion
The environment's sensitivity is assessed on a scale of discrete values ranging from 1 to 3, which are applied separately to surface water, underground water, the soil and the air.
In the case of water, the sensitivity scores are based on a combination of use (drinking water supplies, fishing, agricultural or industrial uses and leisure activities) and exposure (natural protection, the possibilities of directing the flow towards a particular target, etc).
The major difficulties with defining this criterion stem from access to the relevant information and interpreting this information, which requires specialist skills.
The relative merits of simple, but also simplistic, and exhaustive and complex systems
Pollution assessment might take the form of a fixed general criterion or be considered from a risk assessment standpoint.
The first method, which uses fixed levels of acceptable water, air or soil concentrations of substances such as heavy metals or complex organic chemical products, is more rigid but also more easily applied at a regional or national level.
Risk assessment techniques take more account of site conditions and circumstances, such as soil properties and other environmental factors, and to local social and economic conditions. This is the optimum method for individual sites but cannot form the basis of a national or supranational environmental protection policy.
Linking general criteria to site-related criteria or directives is a more appropriate way of establishing a national or European policy.
Many countries have introduced air and water pollution criteria or standards. Standards of cleanliness for drinking water and air are therefore quite normal, but few countries have equivalent standards relating to soil quality. In many cases, the standards relating to soil pollution flow directly from the relevant standards for water and air. However, many of the interrelationships in this field are very complex and great care must be taken before environmental protection values in one area can be ascribed to another.
3.5 The role of local authorities
Although local authorities' environmental protection responsibilities vary from country to country, they generally include:
- the local application of national environmental regulations
- taking steps to protect the local environment
- involving and educating the local population in environmental protection
In other words, they can have a major impact - positive or negative - on the environment.
Local authority support for firms adopting an EMAS
Since local authorities enjoy the closest relationship with firms in their area, they have a major role to play in persuading businesses to accept their environmental responsibilities and in promoting and applying environmental management schemes. This requires them to introduce novel forms of policy, including legal, managerial and technical support, as well as financial assistance.
Co-operation between firms, or between firms and local authorities, is also crucial since it enables the former to pool their human and technical resources, achieve greater synergy and restrict their outlays, for example by establishing joint audit teams, which limits the cost in time and money and increases the teams' effectiveness and impartiality.
Giving environmentally sensitive firms preference in public tenders
In its "Towards Sustainability" programme, the Commission plans to assess, before the end of 1997, the compatibility of Community instruments and policies, including financial ones, with the requirements of sustainable development. This would mean a modification to the existing Community directive on public tenders which would give explicit preference to environmentally sensitive bids.
It might also be possible to apply this principle to local authorities. Local and regional authorities are major employers and major producers and consumers of goods and services. In principle, this gives them the means to influence the environment by adopting certain practices, thus giving them an important part to play in achieving sustainable development.
However, they may be prevented from implementing such practices on a lasting basis by regulations insisting that the majority of services they provide must be open to competition and by a lack of means and an inability to persuade suppliers of goods and services to improve their environmental performance.
If such authorities were authorised to apply environmental criteria to their purchasing and tendering procedures, this would enable them to encourage local businesses to adopt more environmentally sensitive working methods.
Applying EMAS to local authorities
If local environmental policies are to be effective, they must form part of a general management plan based on the interdependence of different sectoral policies, such as land-use and transport planning, which affect the environment. This interdependence would be given greater recognition if local authorities applied environmental management and assessment schemes.
Tourism represents one of Europe's most important economic activities. Leisure activities are already well developed in the central and east European countries and will expand still more if the economic situation continues to improve. However, tourism can also engender negative effects arising from the great concentrations of people it attracts, often over relatively short periods and in sensitive areas such as mountains and coastlines. A balanced form of tourist development is therefore needed. This would be safeguarded by extending environmental standards to local services and local authorities.
Giving local authorities appropriate environmental powers
The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe believes that the subsidiarity principle, enshrined in the Maastricht treaty, must be accompanied by greater legal powers and financial resources to enable local authorities to protect their environments. It criticises failures to respect the European Charter of Local Self-Government with regard to financial matters. Many European governments have a tendency to offload a whole series of responsibilities onto local authorities without transferring matching resources, requiring them to increase either their taxes or their borrowing. Local authorities must therefore be given the resources to achieve their objectives, particularly in the environmental field.
In central and eastern Europe, the degree of financial and institutional independence of local authorities varies widely. National governments must be encouraged to ensure that their countries' newly elected local councils have the necessary legal, financial and tax raising powers to cope with their often grave environmental problems.
4. Conclusion
If international environmental policies are to be co-ordinated, it will first be necessary to respect existing economic and cultural regions. It is within such regions - particularly Europe - that environmental standards must initially be harmonised.
However, this harmonisation must be rational and economically viable, for both the countries and the companies of the region. It must be achieved in stages, taking account of national differences, economic disparities and priorities, particularly regarding energy. It is difficult, for example, to envisage the enforced closure of nuclear power plants in countries in difficulty, without providing first for alternative energy sources.
The aim must therefore be to agree a deadline within which the countries of central and eastern Europe will be required to adopt the European environmental management scheme, standards and regulations.
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Reporting committee: Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities.
Budgetary implications for the Assembly: none
Reference to committee : Doc. 6382 and Reference No. 1716 of 11 March 1991
Draft recommendation adopted by the committee on 17 March 1997
Members of the committee: MM. Briane (Chairman), Ruffy (Vice-Chairman), Ms Aytaman, Ms Severinsen (Vice-Chairpersons), MM. Abdulatipov, Akçali, Andreoli, Assis Miranda, Besostri, Blaauw, Ms Blunck, MM Bonrepaux (alternate: Le Grand), Büchel, Chircop, Christodoulides, Ms Ciemniak, MM. Čiupaila, Cox, Ms Dromberg, MM. Erroi, Feldmann, Frunda, Gregory, Haraldsson O., Hardy, Hoeffel, Ms Jaruga-Nowacka, M. Johansson, Ms Johansson, MM. Kopliku, Korakas, Kovačeviĉ, Kukk, Lie, Lukas, MM. Martinez Casan, Mocanu, Molnar, Mota Amaral, Mozetic, Ms Naoumova, Lord Newall, MM. Penz, Plattner, Priedkalns, Prokeš, Prusi, Rakhansky, Recoder (alternate: Bolinaga), Ms Riess-Passer, MM. Rizzi, Rott, Samofalov, Shishlov, Skoularikis, Sobyanin, Staes, Steolea, Svoboda, Theis, Toshev, Valkeniers, Woltjer, Zierer.
N.B. The names of those who took part in the meeting are printed in italics.
Secretaries to the committee: Ms Cagnolati-Staveris, Mr Chevtchenko
1 1By the Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities.
2 2The International Organisation for Standardisation
3 3The ISO standards are recognised by the World Trade Organisation as practical and effective means of avoiding such problems at the technical level.
4 4Of particular importance here is the addendum to Mrs Robert's report to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on environmental policy in Europe, 1994-95.