Why Companies Do Not Renew Their EMAS Registration? An Exploratory Research

Abstract

Abstract:The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) is the official Environmental Management System (EMS) issued by the European Union (EU). Italy is the country where EMAS is most widespread, accounting for over 1000 registered organizations. Since the entry into the force of the Regulation in 1997, the number of registrations has constantly grown until 2008, when the figures started to drop. The phenomena are due to both the decrease of the annual registration rate and the lack of renewals. According to the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), in recent years, an increasing number of organizations decided to withdraw from EMAS registration. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reasons of this negative trend. The first step consisted of a literature review concerning the main barriers, difficulties and costs incurred by EMAS-registered organizations. Subsequently, this information was integrated with data about the evolution of EMAS registrations and the results of a previous survey, which involved the entire population of Italian registered firms. The present exploratory research highlighted economic and operational domains concerning the cancellation trends that deserve a deeper investigation, which will be conducted through a questionnaire addressed to Italian firms that did not renew the registration in the last lustrum. The intended output will allow us to identify stakeholders' priority intervention areas in order to suggest an operative strategy to reduce EMAS cancellation rates, addressed to Member States (MS) Competent Bodies.

Analysing the causes of environmental management and audit scheme (EMAS) decrease in Europe

“…These findings not only confirm the reasons for EMAS abandonment reported by other authors in the literature review (i.e. Preziosi et al, 2016) but also authors that classified these issues as barriers in the initial adoption of an EMS (i.e. Salomone, 2008).…”

“…Decertification means that a company can decide to not achieve the renew of their environmental certification or that fewer new certifications are issued to organizations (Heras -Saizarbitoria et al, 2015b). Preziosi et al, (2016) observed that the decrease of EMAS is mainly due to the decrease in the new annual registration rate and the lack of renewals. The authors identified as main drop out factor in Italy the lack of human and financial resources.…”

Who cares?—Stakeholder relevance for voluntary environmental management in hospitals

“…On the other hand, previous research has pointed out that the registration numbers for EMAS in general are decreasing and withdrawal from the system can be observed (Preziosi, Merli, & D'Amico, ). EMSs require time commitments and consume resources and are connected to several other hindrances (see, e.g., Merli, Preziosi, & Ippolito, ; Merli & Preziosi, ; Preziosi et al, ; Seifert, ). The lack of stakeholder appreciation for EMS implementation is seen as one major problem concerning intentions to withdraw, as well as attracting new registrations.…”

Zarządzanie energią w regionalnych dyrekcjach ochrony środowiska zarejestrowanych w systemie ekozarządzania i audytu EMAS

“…W rezultacie przeprowadzonej analizy typu desk research ustalono, e dominuj publikacje opisuj ce aspekty funkcjonowania systemów w przedsi biorstwach. Szczególnym zainteresowaniem naukowców ciesz si zagadnienia odnosz ce si do skutków implementacji EMAS w odniesieniu do przedsi biorstw dzia aj cych w energoch onnych sektorach gospodarki (Neugebauer, 2012;Preziosi i Merli D'Amico, 2016). J. Adamczyk, J. Zar bska, L. Ka mierczak-Piwko opisywali wprawdzie istot zarz dzania rodowiskowego w instytucjach samorz du terytorialnego (Adamczyk, Zar bska i Ka mierczak-Piwko, 2007).…”