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Due to the growing awareness among enterprises of the relevance of ‘sustainable development’, applications of the Environmental Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) in Italy are expanding. With the second era of EMAS (EMAS II), this scheme will become a global instrument, enabling Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to master environmental challenges while improving their competitive position. This report intends to demonstrate that area and local agreements between local government units and research centres, such as universities or energy and environmental boards, can simplify and improve the diffusion of EMAS in the country. Reported examples of some small Italian municipalities that have applied EMAS are demonstrations of how government units can increase all citizens' quality of life while taking care of environmental aspects. Since 1993, the year of the first applications of Regulation 1836/93, local government units have understood the important role they can play in this subject. This work illustrates that the development of ISO and EMAS local applications must be based on government's local promotion aimed at encouraging enterprises to voluntarily adopt these instruments for environmental safeguard. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.

On the occasion of "World Water Day 2007", "Water, the challenge of the century" was said by Jaques Diouf, director general of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, spoke of the critical issues related to water management that man will face in the 21st century. The importance of water derives from its being an indispensable but limited resource. We are not able to produce more than Earth offers, nor can we exploit water resources outside the planet. Nevertheless, water remains a fundamental asset whose demand is expected to grow considerably in the coming years: It is estimated that, by 2050, almost half of the world's population will be exposed to potential conditions of water stress. The aim of this work is to analyse the role of tourism in the consumption of water resources, in particular, the volumes of water "indirectly" spent to meet the needs of tourists.We will explain in detail what these "indirect consumption" consist of and we will deepen the characteristics of the tourism sector in order to understand the mechanisms that bind it to water resources.

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