Waterford County Council is one of two Local Authorities that have been accrediated with EMAS (Eco Management and Audit Scheme) which is an Environmental Management System. Organisations with a proactive approach to environmental challenges continually improve their environmental performance. EMAS is the premium environmental management tool that helps them to achieve this. Currently more than 4,400 organisations and more than 7.800 sites are EMAS registered throughout Europe.
The EMAS Awards praise the relentless efforts on environmental protection of EMAS registered organisations. The European Commission hands out these high-status environmental awards every year since 2005. An EMAS Award is the most prestigious award in environmental management and is only handed out to top performing companies and public authorities in six categories.
Each year, the EMAS Awards winners are honoured for their achievements in a particular area of their environmental performance. Past themes have encompassed a variety of topics, including resource efficiency and waste management.
The theme of the 2011 EMAS Awards is “Stakeholder involvement, including employee involvement, leading to continuous improvement”.
Engaging with stakeholders encompasses influencing and involving the supply chain (e.g. offering environmental training programmes for suppliers), setting up interactive dialogues with employees and organising face-to-face meetings with local authorities and neighbours of production sites.
This year the EMAS Awards will be handed out to the winners in the six categories in a festive atmosphere during the EMAS Awards ceremony 2011. The ceremony will take place on 17 November 2011 in the ancient and beautiful Wieliczka Salt Mine, located near Cracow.
Member States have received many applications from EMAS registered organisations and have officially nominated 36 organisations from 15 European countries in 6 categories