REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND TO THE COUNCIL on the review of implementation of Regulation (EC)No 122/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) and the Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 of the parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the EU Ecolabel

Section 1 Executive summary

This fitness check covers two schemes that firms may voluntarily use: Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 on the EU Ecolabel (the EU Ecolabel regulation) and Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) (the EMAS regulation). In line with the Commission's Better Regulation guidelines, the fitness check examined the schemes in terms of their relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and their EU value added.

In terms of the process, the Fitness check was supported by two separate evaluation studies that were supported by stakeholder-engagement including a public consultation for the EU Ecolabel and a focused stakeholder consultation for EMAS. This stakeholder consultation was particularly important because the comprehensiveness of the Fitness check exercise was limited to some extent by the voluntary nature of the schemes and the lack of data to quantify the schemes' impacts. The absence of a commonly agreed method to quantify and benchmark environmental performance of organisations and products also means that it is not possible to compare systematically products and organisations that are participating in the schemes with those that are not. Moreover, the Regulations did not define clear objectives for their uptake and therefore, it is not possible to evaluate quantitatively whether the schemes have delivered what was expected of them or not.

Nevertheless, the Fitness check allowed an assessment of the functioning and performance of the schemes, allowing conclusions to be drawn on what is - and/or isn't - working well.

The main findings about how the Regulations meet their objectives as identified and investigated through the Fitness check intervention logic are that they:

•contribute to reducing the environmental impact of consumption and production (general objective). •contribute to promoting continuous improvements in the environmental performance of organisations and promote products with reduced environmental impact (specific objectives) through the EU Ecolabel criteria and through the environmental improvements observed in EMAS organisations (operational objective).

However this contribution is:

•Substantially limited by the level of uptake of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel by producers and organisations (operational objective) due to the limited awareness by external stakeholders including business partners, consumers but also authorities resulting in limited market and administrative/regulatory reward for participation as well as due to participation criteria that may in some cases be difficult to reach by EU industry. •Limited compared to the overall breadth of the challenges to be addressed in terms of reducing the overall environmental impacts of consumption and production.



Despite these limits, the Regulations remain relevant as part of a package of EU policy responses to a growing need to change current consumption and production patterns, as reflected in current strategic policy objectives, including the Europe 2020 strategy, the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe, the 7th Environment Action Programme and the EU action plan for the Circular Economy. Among EU policy tools, EMAS and the EU Ecolabel (together with green public procurement) are unique in that they aim to address the environmental impact along the whole life cycle, including the increasing number of impacts of European consumption that happens in countries outside the EU where products and materials are often produced and from which they are imported to the EU. For EMAS, there is a question over its future relevance as ISO 14001, revised in 2015, increasingly adopts many, but not yet all its main elements.

The Regulations have been partly effective as they ensure:

•Enhanced environmental performance for those products that carry the EU Ecolabel. However, the quantitative benchmark of environmental excellence (top 10-20 % of environmental performance of products on the market) cannot be verified due to the lack of an agreed methodology for comparison and in the absence of comprehensive data. Also, in some cases, when the validity of EU Ecolabel criteria is extended without a thorough analysis of the evolution of the market situation, the EU Ecolabel may no longer reflect environmental excellence.

•Enhanced environmental performance on the majority of the core indicators including on energy, water and CO2 for EMAS certified organisations. On the core indicators waste and materials the picture is mixed with more than 75% of EMAS registered companies experiencing a positive performance impact on waste and materials on one side and a negative average performance calculated from an a sample of reportings on the core indicators on the other. Studies show that EMAS generally delivers a better increase in environmental performance than ISO 14001.

However the overall effectiveness of the instruments is reduced by limited uptake:

•The uptake of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel which is not sufficient to drive the overall market and thus to achieve significant changes in overall consumption and production patterns and, through this, deliver significant environmental benefits beyond the companies and organisations deciding to be part of the schemes. The limits in uptake for both Regulations is due to a lack of awareness and market recognition; lack of recognition in public policy; and compliance and verification costs.

For the EU Ecolabel, there is: a lack of promotional activities, the number and stringency of criteria requirements, and the challenge of compliance with Article 6(6) prohibiting the use of hazardous substances. There are also significant differences in the uptake for different types of products, with several product groups having no - or only marginal - uptake, reflecting barriers for some specific product groups on one side, and on the other side a lack of a strategic approach for selecting for which groups to develop/revise criteria.

For EMAS additional barriers are: a lack of integration into public policy in the form of incentives and relief from other regulatory requirements ('regulatory relief'), the lack of promotional activities, and the existence of a globally recognized and less demanding environmental management system (ISO 14001) which is the market leader.

The effectiveness for both schemes varies between Member States with some achieving no or very low uptake while others - such as Germany and Spain with respectively 1882 and 1289 registered EMAS sites and France with 555 and Italy with 359 registered EU Ecolabel licenses - achieving better results. Such differences can be mainly attributed to the level of resources invested by Member States as well as to whether initiatives are taken to integrate the instruments into the wider set of environmental policies. For example, linking EMAS to rules on environmental inspections can provide an incentive to adopt EMAS and obtain 'regulatory relief'; likewise, Ecolabel can be incentivised through a link to Green Public Procurement.