EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 30.6.2017 SWD(2017) 253 final COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT FITNESS CHECK Accompanying the document 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

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Section 2 Introduction This fitness check covers Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 of the European Parliament and Council of 25 November 2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) and Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 of the European Parliament and Council of 25 November 2009 on the EU Ecolabel, and their contribution to the sustainable consumption and production (SCP) policy framework. It is a retrospective exercise, aiming to assess the two Regulations’ actual performance. The purpose of the fitness check is to evaluate the implementation of EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations and to assess their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value. The fitness check is not evaluating the performance of the SCP policy framework as a whole, nor individual instruments other than EMAS and the EU Ecolabel. The fitness check falls under the Commission’s Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme. The work presented here is guided by the fitness check mandate for the EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations. As the fitness check is a retrospective exercise, it does not answer forward-looking questions included in the mandate. The fitness check will be used by the Commission as a basis to inform future policy decisions on both schemes. Section 3 Background to the initiatives 3.1 EMAS and the EU Ecolabel as part of the sustainable consumption and production framework Economic activities connected to products and services have an impact on the Environment and on people’s health and quality of life. Sustainable consumption and production mitigate the negative environmental impacts of such activities and balance the need for such mitigation with the need for economic and social development. Instruments like EMAS and the EU Ecolabel encourage voluntary activities with reduced environmental impact and improve their economic potential. EMAS and the EU Ecolabel are part of the EU policy framework for sustainable consumption and production. The EU Ecolabel was created in 1992 and EMAS in 1995 but both were re-launched as part of the Communication on sustainable consumption and production and the sustainable industrial policy action plan (SCP action plan) in 2008. Since 2008, several initiatives have further developed the framework on sustainability. These include: the Communication on EUROPE 2020 — a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; the Communication on a Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe; the seventh EU Environmental action programme calling for a more effective and coherent SCP policy framework and the 2015 EU action plan for the circular economy. In the Communication ‘Building the single market for green products — facilitating better information on the environmental performance of products and organisations’, the Commission recognised the need for a common method to quantify the environmental impact (footprint) of products and organisations and benchmark them against each other (within the same product group or sector). Such work has clear links to both the EU Ecolabel and EMAS, but as this work is still in the pilot phase, results were not available for inclusion in this fitness check. Figure 1: EMAS, the EU Ecolabel and other SCP tools It is important to understand certain key characteristics of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel within this framework. In particular, there are key differences in the nature and role of the two Regulations compared to other SCP-related policies which also introduce specific limitations to this fitness check. For further information see sections 3.2 (objectives), 3.3 (intervention logic) and 5.3 (limitations). Voluntary vs mandatory: EMAS and the EU Ecolabel are voluntary Regulations giving support to producers and organisations that go beyond what is required by legislation in their efforts to protect the environment and quality of life. In that sense, they are intended for environmental frontrunners and their uptake will naturally depend on the attractiveness and promotion of the schemes to producers and consumers. Other key EU legislative interventions in the SCP toolbox are mandatory instruments with the expectation of full uptake on the market. Ecodesign sets mandatory minimum requirements for energy related products on the market and the Energy Label obliges mandatory consumer information intended for comparison of products with a primary focus on energy consumption in the use-phase. Products and organisations: The EU Ecolabel, Ecodesign and the Energy Label are policies for products. EMAS is the only EU-driven SCP instrument focused on achieving progressive environmental improvements in organisations. At global level it competes with ISO 14001 - a voluntary initiative also focusing on the environmental management of organisations. Both EMAS and ISO look at the potential for improvement within the individual organisation and rely on knowledge, understanding and data about the specific organisation. For EMAS this is supported by guidance for specific sectors provided in Sectoral Reference Documents (SRD's).

The SCP product policies use knowledge, understanding and data about products to establish benchmarks or categories on the market based on individual environmental concerns or overall environmental performance. For the EU Ecolabel, this benchmark is defined by the EU Ecolabel criteria requirements. Scope: Whilst the Ecodesign and the Energy labelling Directives are limited to energy-related products, the EU Ecolabel can be extended to all types of products and EMAS to all types of organisations. The EU Ecolabel addresses overall environmental performance throughout the life cycle (material extraction, production, use and end of life) and weighs different impacts against each other. Ecodesign and the Energy Label focus on energy consumption in the use phase but in particular Ecodesign can include additional significant environmental impacts. For EMAS, the evaluation and establishment of concrete performance targets is individual for the company; however, a set of core indicators is established for all EMAS registered organisations. Green public procurement and eco-innovation activities can support other (SCP) instruments including Ecolabel and EMAS. The public sector are important buyers - public procurement accounts for around 14 % of EU GDP across a wide range of sectors (e.g. energy, transport, waste management, social protection, some health and educational services). Green public procurement can pull green products and services (such as EU-Ecolabelled products, products with a good energy performance or organisations that implement a transparent management scheme) on to the market. Eco-innovation activities can push certain product, production or service performance standards by developing new, cleaner or more efficient solutions or by making the best currently available technologies cheaper and more accessible. 3.2 Objectives of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel Regulations The objective for the EU Ecolabel as stated in Recital 1 of the current Regulation is: ‘…to promote products with a reduced environmental impact during their entire life cycle and to provide consumers with accurate, non-deceptive, science-based information on the environmental impacts of products’ The objective for EMAS as stated in Article 1 of the Regulation is: ‘...to promote continuous improvements in the environmental performance of organisations by establishment and implementation of environmental management systems by organisations, the systematic, objective and periodic evaluation of the performance of such systems, the provision of information on environmental performance, an open dialogue with the public and other interested parties and the active involvement of employees in organisations and appropriate training.’ Whilst each Regulation has its own objectives, for the purpose of the fitness check, these have been combined to define a set of general, specific and operational objectives: The general objective, which refers to the overall policy goal and is common for both schemes, is: to contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact of consumption and production. The specific objectives refer to what the Regulations were meant to achieve, and these differ: for EMAS: to promote continuous improvements in the environmental performance of organisations. for the EU Ecolabel: to promote products with reduced environmental impacts. The specific objectives are simplified versions of the objectives set out in the Regulations and in the associated impact assessments. The operational objectives are the same for both schemes, although they are achieved in different ways. Operational objective 1: Ensuring environmental performance through EMAS and the EU Ecolabel. For EMAS, environmental benefits are achieved by the individual organisations. In order to be EMAS-registered, each organisation must commit to improving and reporting on its environmental performance. The EMAS Regulation (Annex IV) provides a set of six core indicators that must be considered: energy efficiency; material efficiency; water; waste; biodiversity; emissions to air. These core indicators can be seen as environmental priorities, for instance regarding the link between CO2 reduction/resource depletion and cost savings (energy/material efficiency). The EMAS Regulation also requires the organisation to report on its compliance with other relevant pieces of environmental legislation.

For the EU Ecolabel, the environmental benefits are achieved by a product when it complies with product specific EU Ecolabel criteria requirements. These are pass/fail criteria intended (according to Annex 1 to the Regulation) to reflect the best 10-20 % of products on the market in terms of environmental performance, taking into account the whole life cycle of the product. Operational objective 2: ensuring uptake of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel Uptake multiplies the environmental effects achieved by EMAS-registered organisations or by products that carry the EU Ecolabel. For EMAS, uptake is the number of registered organisations. If each organisation achieves the desired benefits, the two operational objectives should say something about the contribution to sustainable consumption and production. For the EU Ecolabel, uptake is the number of EU Ecolabel licences awarded and the number of products carrying the EU Ecolabel. The number of licences and products should demonstrate how attractive the EU Ecolabel is to industry. Indirectly, this should also say something about the uptake among consumers (there is no access to market share data as these are not collected as part of the monitoring obligations of the scheme (see limits to data – section 6.2). As a supplement to data on uptake by producers, consumer awareness of the EU Ecolabel can also tell something about the role of the EU Ecolabel on the market. Both schemes should give a trustworthy reference point for environmental performance or compliance checked by a third party to public authorities, consumers or buyers in business-to-business transactions. This is reflected in the intervention logic as an intermediate output, but should be considered a separate although not quantifiable objective related to the trustworthiness of the schemes. For EMAS, the fact that environmental compliance is integrated into the system together with independent third party verification is intended to enable better integration into environmental policies. It should also allow e.g. for the exploitation of regulatory relief and synergies in implementation of environmental legislation in Member States (e.g. environmental inspections). This only happens if there is trust in the scheme as a guarantee for environmental performance and compliance. For the EU Ecolabel the development and implementation of third-party verified criteria requirements should help to reduce green washing and unsubstantiated environmental claims. Credibility and trustworthiness are about both performances of criteria requirements in terms of environment and functionality and also the business model of the scheme. The final effect of the EU Ecolabel is achieved when the scheme is able to shift choice (professional or private) towards more environmentally friendly consumption. This only happens if consumers trust the scheme. For voluntary tools such as EMAS and the EU Ecolabel there is an operational trade-off between the two operational objectives mentioned here as in general, increased costs of compliance (e.g. through reporting obligations) can be expected to reduce (voluntary) involvement in the two schemes. This happens because costs of compliance (a barrier to uptake) can be expected to increase with environmental performance requirements (e.g. top 10-20 % of environmental performance on the market, avoiding hazardous substances, reporting on key indicators) and increased trustworthiness and credibility. On the other hand producers and organisations rely exactly on that credibility. EMAS and the EU Ecolabel should also support the good functioning of the single market by providing clarity and common reference on the environmental features and characteristics of products and organisations. This is provided e.g. through the agreed EU Ecolabel criteria and the EMAS sectoral reference documents that are common, valid and provide guidance on the whole EU market. This should mean that manufactures and organisations do not have to spend resources on developing internal programmes/systems for advancing environmental claims or need to join a multitude of individual schemes, criteria or commitments that — with the exception of ISO standards — would only cover limited parts of the single market. 3.3 The intervention logic of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel The intervention logic presented in Figure 2 builds on the objectives explained above. The intermediate outputs reflects that the main actions established by the Regulations should result in schemes that are attractive to organisations and producers while provide the trustworthiness and credibility needed to meet consumer concerns, and be used and integrated in wider environmental policies e.g. for regulatory relief or in green public procurement. External factors (such as the general macroeconomic development, existence of competing instruments, market trends and technological development) also affect the outcome. The intervention logic set out the framework that enables organisations and producers to participate in the schemes and apply for the EU Ecolabel or for EMAS certification. For the EU Ecolabel, this is done by: ·selecting product groups and providing a set of criteria that defines products as having the best environmental performance — corresponding to the best 10-20 % on the market in terms of environmental performance (operational objective 1); ·providing the institutional setup that guarantees impartial third-party verification of compliance with these criteria and the registration of products. The compliance label is the EU Ecolabel i.e. the flower (intermediate output). For EMAS, this is done by: ·providing guidance on the environmental review and performance of organisations (operational objective 1); ·providing the institutional setup to guarantee impartial and third-party verification of compliance with continuous improvements (intermediate output).

Setting up this framework as an intermediate output enables the schemes to achieve uptake by producers, who will then have to comply with the criteria (operational objective 2). To further support this, the Regulations also set out ways of making the schemes more attractive to possible participants through promotional activities or by ensuring benefits from integration into wider environmental policies. For both schemes it is/was expected that the national authorities set up a competent body to check compliance and award the EU Ecolabel or the EMAS certificate. Organisations and producers should apply for registration through the competent body. The competent body should then request information on the product’s performance or the proper implementation of the EMAS environmental management and audit system. The producer and organisation should gather this information and submit it to the competent body to prove compliance. For EMAS this should be done through reporting on activities and performances based on the organisation’s commitments to improve environmental performance and should lead to the organisation becoming EMAS registered. For the EU Ecolabel, information would need to be provided to prove that the product’s environmental performance is compliant with the EU Ecolabel criteria for the relevant product group. Figure 2: Intervention for EU Ecolabel and EMAS EU Ecolabel: Regulatory platform to facilitate the voluntary registration, verification, labelling and promotion of products/services with reduced environmental impact. EU Ecolabel: European Commission and Members States ·Development of criteria ·Perform verification and registration ·Provide assistance to producers ·Promotional activities ·Coordination activities Outputs Reduced impact resulting from the individual EMAS certified organisations and EU--Ecolabelled product Organisations: ·Perform and environmental review ·Establish an environmental management system ·Improve and report on environmental performance (including compliance) ·Apply for / obtain EMAS registration ·Use EMAS to improve their image EMAS: Promote continuous improvements in the environmental performance of organisations Consumers: ·Buy EU-Ecolabelled products Producers/service providers ·Eventual environmental improvement of products/services to comply with criteria ·Compile information to prove compliance ·Apply for label / obtain label ·Promotional activities Credible, attractive and trustworthy schemes EMAS: EU Commission and Member States ·Guidance on environmental review and performance ·Perform registration ·Set conditions of verification ·Promote and support the scheme ·Ensure integration in environmental policy ·Promotional activities ·Coordination of activities EMAS: Regulatory platform establishing a voluntary scheme that stimulates the improvement of environmental performance. It includes independent verification, registration by authorities and transparent reporting. Under Commission Control Macroeconomic developments — Market trends Competing instruments (development and interactions) Technological development EU Ecolabel: Promote products/services with reduced environmental impacts External factors Reduce the environmental impact of consumption and production Reduced overall impact on the environment from consumption and production Uptake of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel Results Impacts Voluntary activities Intermediate output Regulatory activities Regulatory input Objectives Needs Figures 3 and 4 illustrate how the schemes work in different ways. The EU Ecolabel targets the segment of the market that produces products that deliver environmental excellence. Any organisation can apply for EMAS if it is willing to commit to environmental improvements and report on efforts and achievements. As this is more demanding than mandatory regulation and the more widely adopted, comparable ISO 14001 standard, the EMAS Regulation attracts organisations willing to go further than mainstream organisations, including those participating in the ISO 14001 environmental management system. In this sense, EMAS-registered organisations can be considered frontrunners. Figure3: Steps in the EU Ecolabel model Development of criteria Adoption of criteria Verification and awarding the EU Ecolabel Uptake of the EU Ecolabel Purchase of EU Ecolabel product Main actors Commission and EU Ecolabelling Board and relevant stakeholders Commission and EU Ecolabelling Board Competent bodies Producers/service providers Consumers Figure 4: Steps in the EMAS Model Perform environmental review Set objectives and implement actions Assess and report on achievements, set new objective and actions Verification and registration + award of the EMAS logo Uptake of EMAS Main actors Organisation Organisation Organisation Verifier and competent body Organisation Under EMAS, the process is expected to be cyclical. Reporting on achievements, setting new objectives and actions and checking them has to be done by the organisations every third year. This should allow for continuous environmental improvement and ensure that national authorities are regularly updated on environmental compliance. Under the EU Ecolabel the criteria should be regularly updated to ensure that they reflect environmental excellence. nder EMAS, the environmental benefit should be achieved when organisations improve their performance. Under the EU Ecolabel, the environmental benefit should be achieved when the product replaces another product with a worse environmental profile. In other words, the final environmental effect depends on consumer choice. EMAS and the EU Ecolabel are voluntary schemes, meaning that producers and organisations freely decide whether they want to apply to participate. When deciding whether to apply, they will consider both the cost (e.g. the fee and the internal cost for preparing the application or for implementing changes) and the benefits. Examples of expected benefits for applicants could be as follows: EMAS EU Ecolabel Resource and energy efficiency leading to cost reduction Increased focus on environmental performance and efficiencies in the production processes Image improvement leading to increased attractiveness for clients and stakeholders Image improvement given by the label, proving excellent environmental performance of products and services and enabling consumers to make informed choices on the basis of environmental performance Better compliance with environmental legislation, leading to a decrease in risk of sanctions and environmental incidents Compliance with one set of requirements per product group recognised and accepted across the single market and providing the ability to substantiate environmental claims via the required third-party verification. This could be considered especially important for SMEs since they may not have the in-house capacity to sign up to different labels or develop their own. Recognition by public authorities leading to regulatory relief and administrative incentives Recognition of performance by green public and private procurement Producers’ uptake of the EU Ecolabel (licences and products) and organisations’ uptake of EMAS (registration of organisations and sites) should be monitored at Member State level and for individual product groups. There are no required measures related to monitoring the impact of the EU Ecolabel on sales and market share for the EU Ecolabel. Section 4 Evaluation questions The retrospective evaluation questions published in the mandate seek to assess implementation with regard to: relevance, EU added value, Effectiveness, Efficiency and coherence. The evaluation questions are dealt with together for both Regulations, but where necessary, relevant conclusions are presented for the individual Regulations. The individual questions are presented and addressed in section 7. The general understanding of the five evaluation criteria applied for the Fitness check is as follows: Relevance: What is the relationship between the needs and the problems in society and the objectives of the intervention and the current policy agenda?

EU added value: Has intervention at EU level on EMAS and the EU Ecolabel caused changes that would otherwise not have occurred? Effectiveness: How successful has EU action been in achieving or progressing towards its objectives? Efficiency: What is the relationship between the resources used in an intervention and the changes it brought about? Coherence: How well do the EU Ecolabel and EMAS work together with other actions? Section 5 Method 5.1. Purpose and scope of the Fitness Check The purpose of the fitness check is to assess if the EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations are fit for purpose, in particular checking that the regulations do not apply unnecessary or disproportionate regulatory burden, and to gain a better understanding of the experiences in implementing the schemes by focusing on the criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value. In addition, both the EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations require that a report shall be sent to Council and Parliament on their implementation. This fitness check focuses exclusively on the EMAS and the EU Ecolabel Regulations and their performance. It does not cover the wider SCP tools (see figure 1, section 3.1) which were at different stages of development. For example, the work streams on the product and organisation environmental footprints and on environmental technology verification are still in the pilot phase and data are not yet available from them. They will be evaluated in the context of the pilot phase. However the 2008 SCP Action Plan is important in providing the context and links to other tools and is addressed in the section on coherence (section 7.4). Equally, given the recent reviews of the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Directives as well as the Public Procurement Directive (which has an impact on the potential for using Green Public Procurement as a way to stimulate the market for green products) these directives were excluded from the direct scope, but are covered under coherence. This also means that any potential impact on EMAS and the EU Ecolabel resulting from changes in the way these Directives are implemented are unknown at the time of this fitness check. In terms of the time period covered, this fitness check is not limited to the impacts resulting from the most recent revisions in 2009 but attempts to evaluate the overall performance of both Regulations since their inception. The differences between voluntary and mandatory tools, between products and organisations as well as differences in scope of the different SCP instruments (see section 3.1.) and the limited and scattered access to data means that it has not been possible to do a cumulative cost and benefit analysis of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel together within this fitness check; nor for the instruments in the SCP action plan as a whole. 5.2. Evaluation studies This fitness check draws on two supporting studies (one for EMAS and one for the EU Ecolabel) carried out between January 2014 and December 2015. Both studies had access to general information (collected via competent bodies and the EU Ecolabel and EMAS Helpdesks) about uptake of the two schemes, products covered, etc. Due to the nature of this data, no study-specific modelling was conducted. Stakeholder consultation Both supporting studies used the results of stakeholder consultations conducted through online questionnaires (distributed during the summer of 2014), face-to-face and phone interviews, and stakeholder workshops. For the EU Ecolabel, 364 responses were received following a 12 week open public consultation. A sample of six Member States was investigated more closely. The countries were chosen after categorising Member States by uptake (high, medium, low). Account was also paid to the need to address countries with strong national Ecolabels (e.g. Blue Angel in Germany) or regional ecolabels (the Nordic Ecolabel that Denmark shares with the other Nordic countries) and to balancing older Member States with those who joined after 2004. Two Member States were selected from each group: Denmark and Italy with a relatively high uptake, Germany and the Czech Republic with a medium uptake and the United Kingdom and Poland with a low uptake. Telephone or face-to-face interviews were carried out in all six Member States. Further interviews were also conducted with key stakeholders and a stakeholder workshop was held to discuss key emerging results from the consultation process. Throughout the process, the EUEB (European Union Ecolabelling Board) and competent bodies were consulted.

For EMAS, a different approach was chosen, based on: ·a survey targeting EMAS organisations; ·a set of interviews addressing all stakeholders; ·a specific survey addressing Member States. A focused survey of EMAS-registered organisations was considered the best use of resources rather than an open consultation. The survey received a high-level of participation, with representation proportionate to the number of registrations in the different Member States and sectors. 467 responses to the online questionnaire were received from organisations. Additionally, EMAS stakeholders were contacted, including: ·competent bodies; ·environmental verifiers; ·different types of EMAS-registered organisations (public and private, large and small, national and global, manufacturers and service providers); ·Member State representatives. Interviews were also carried out with non-EMAS-registered organisations and organisations that withdrew from EMAS. The EMAS study looked more specifically at a limited selection of Member States representing different levels of uptake. For this purpose, Member States were divided into three categories and evaluators were asked to get feedback from all three groups, but to give priority to Member States where most experience and information could be found. A separate and focused questionnaire was sent to Member States with 20 responses and six partial responses were received. A workshop was held to discuss key results from the questionnaire and the desk research. Throughout the process, the competent bodies were consulted. Desk research An extensive review of specialist literature/desk research was a central part of the methodology for both studies. For the EU Ecolabel, evaluators looked closer at four product groups. The selection was intended to cover different types of products, with the following selected for closer investigation: ·one article: tissue paper; ·one mixture: paints and varnishes; ·one service: tourist accommodation; ·an electrical product: televisions.

For environmental management schemes particular attention was paid to the most popular alternative system to EMAS - the ISO 14001 global environmental management system. The aims were to cover potential synergies and conflicts and look at the EU added value. 5.3 Limitations to the Fitness Check Whilst the work presented here attempts to follow the latest Commission guidelines on evaluation it should be noted that the Fitness Check started before they were adopted. In practice this means that substantial (external) work had already been commissioned by the time of their adoption and it was not possible to adapt to all the methodological and data needs now enshrined in the Guidelines. This provides limitations to the analysis that can be presented, particularly given the data issues explained below. The assessment of the consultation done in the supporting studies built on the responses received, which were largely from existing stakeholders and active participants in the schemes. However, barriers and drivers will largely be the same for those involved and for those who have considered applying but chosen not to, although the final weighting of the consequences (costs and benefits) has been different. The studies tried to gather additional information from Member States concerning costs and revenues linked to the implementation of the schemes. However, such information remains limited, incomplete and with variations in coverage and quality. Costs for implementing one Regulation cannot easily be separated from other policy initiatives and the income from registration fees is, to varying degrees, reinvested in implementation or goes directly to the state budget to balance costs. For this reason, information should be treated with caution as only providing broad and partial information. There are similar problems relating to benefits data, meaning that at this point in time they cannot be quantified in monetary terms or in absolute environmental improvements in a credible and comprehensive manner. Benefits can be associated with a range of stakeholders and issues including increased sales, improved production processes, resource savings, better supply chain management, access to public procurement, regulatory relief, higher awareness among employees, better image, easier access to markets through harmonised procedures or fewer accidents or infractions resulting from better environmental management. Because of this lack of data an overview of net benefit or cost cannot be provided. In addition, costs and benefits will depend on implementation in individual Member States, on the different sectors and product groups involved and the individual structure of the organisation or production process. For the same reason it is not possible to calculate a cumulative impact. The fact that both Regulations are voluntary means that no systematic data on the environmental profile or on the market as such is available or reported for either products or organisations which do not follow the two schemes. Environmental data is available for products or organisations who participate in the schemes; it is collected and verified by third parties but no market share data is collected and reported by the schemes. Considering the voluntary nature of the schemes adding requirements could add to the administrative burden or oblige sharing of information that is preferably kept in-house and thus in some instances act as a deterrent to joining the schemes. However, for the purpose of establishing a full picture of the environmental performance on the market this a limited and biased sample. Furthermore this information it only available when they participate and not at the time when the first set of EU Ecolabel criteria is defined. This can cause a significant limitation. It has not been possible to gather comparative information on implementation costs for competing schemes. Given that such schemes operate under different national, regional (such as the Nordic countries) or global conditions, any direct comparison would in any case be difficult. Similarly, there are limitations relating to the limited availability of consistent pan-European data on the actual environmental performance of products and organisations. As a result, comparison with an average product or organisation — or general baseline — is not possible. EU Ecolabel-specific limitations Availability of data on environmental performance has been a limiting factor. A full set of complex data would have had to be generated at product level for all products within a product group in order to compare and benchmark environmental performance of the EU Ecolabel products against average products on the market. Given the complexity of products and services, the wide range of components each one may contain and the voluntary nature of the scheme, the need for enormous amounts of data and the limited availability of such data would require disproportionate resources in order to perform a fitness check at the same level of quantification and detail that could be expected e.g. for Energy Labelling. Where possible, the evaluation study addressed the lack of data on environmental performance by performing a life cycle assessment or comparing the performance of products to requirements in mandatory legislation. In general however, the suitability of the EU Ecolabel criteria has been assessed by looking at the procedures to set criteria for the EU-Ecolabelled products. An additional limitation is that the data reporting method was changed in 2010. Under the new method, producers were asked to report directly through a common database rather than through competent bodies. This method of counting the number of licences and products and reporting was only harmonised in 2014. This means that pre-2014 data is not easily compared and that aggregate data cannot be considered specific but rather as indicating broad trends. This therefore limits the statistics available for this fitness check. EMAS-specific limitations For EMAS, a recent update (September 2015) of the ISO 14001 global environmental management system has adopted some of the elements of EMAS, although distinct features still remain. Due to its recent adoption the potential impact of the ISO revision on EMAS cannot be estimated. Annex 3b illustrates the main differences before and after the revision. One of the (remaining) distinct features that distinguishes EMAS from ISO is that EMAS includes mandatory transparent reporting, ensuring that the required information is available for EMAS registered organisations. Since ISO-registered companies are not requested to report publicly on their achievements, it was not possible to directly compare the environmental performance of EMAS and ISO-certified organisations, although this fitness check draws on what information could be found in other studies. Moreover, it is not possible to compare the performance of EMAS-registered organisations with that of an average organisation due to the lack of relevant data available for the latter. However, because each EMAS registered organisation defines its individual targets based on its own processes and procedures and building on its own data sets, even with access to data from other organisation direct comparison would be difficult. The EMAS questionnaire was directed towards EMAS organisations. This targeted approach gives more detailed results on experiences, but at the same time, it established a biased sample. This is a limitation in the use of the questionnaire that was recognised by the study and compensation was sought through desk research and interviews with non-EMAS stakeholders. The distribution of the sample across Member States has a bias towards Member States with more mature policies in support of EMAS. While it is natural that there will be more responses from Member States with large numbers of registrations, this bias needs to be taken into account. However, the study also splits the results into three categories: Member States with high, medium, or low level of registrations. Section 6 State of play of the implementation (Results) 6.1. Reporting on monitoring activities

The statistical results reflect the monitoring activities put in place as part of the implementation of the most recent Regulations. 6.1.1 EU Ecolabel Given the uncertainty of the data, the statistics should be treated with caution. The number of licences and products under the EU Ecolabel has been generally increasing in the period since the revision in 2010. This also reflects the increased number of product groups for which criteria have been developed. In 2010, criteria were in place for 26 product groups, in 2014 for 38 product groups, and in 2015 for 33 product groups (see Annex 4). Figure 6: EU Ecolabel licences Figure 7: EU-Ecolabelled products Uptake varies greatly among product groups. Generally speaking, products related to health and hygiene, such as soaps and shampoos, all-purpose cleaners and dishwashing detergents, show higher uptake, together with paper products and paints. The number of licences for tourist accommodation and campsite services is among the highest (650 and 123), but this should be considered in light of the overall very high number of existing tourist accommodations. Seven product groups have no uptake and a number of product groups have very little uptake. The statistics also show significant differences in uptake across Member States. Five countries (Austria, France, Italy, Germany and Spain) have more than 100 licensees and count for approximately 75 % of all licences. One observation is that Member States with strong national or regional labels (such as the Blue Angel or the Nordic Swan) are well represented among the countries with higher uptake considering also size of the Member State. Italy’s share of EU Ecolabel products is caused by a dominant position in the ‘hard coverings’ product group, where Italy has 14 licences covering 14 352 products. Although some Member States dominate some product groups, almost a third of the product groups have uptake in ten or more Member States. Tourist accommodation, all-purpose cleaners, tissue paper, indoor paints and varnishes have the most widespread uptake among Member States. Table 2: Distribution of licences across product groups and Member States

Table 3: Distribution of products across product groups and Member States 6.1.2 EMAS From 2005 to 2012, the number of EMAS-registered organisations and sites showed a slow, but steady increase (see Figure 8 below). The number of EMAS-registered organisations increased by nearly 50 %, from 3 084 in 2005 to 4 473 in 2012, but still remains a small proportion of the total number of organisations/companies in the EU. Between 2012 and 2014, both the number of organisations and the number of sites decreased, reaching 4 049 organisations and 7 556 sites in mid-2014. The decrease has mainly been caused by a drop in Italy and Spain (see figure 10 below showing Member State evolutions) coinciding with the economic crisis. In 2010, EMAS III introduced the concept of ‘EU corporate registration’ that enables a single organisation to register multiple sites in different countries under one registration number. As a result, the number of sites has been growing faster than the number of organisations. Some organisations have also decided to regroup their registered sites under one registration number (negatively impacting the organisation registration figures). In 2015, the helpdesk identified 736 corporate registrations, including a total of 4 213 sites. Figure 8 — Number of EMAS-registered organisations and sites There are significant differences in the number of organisations per Member State: the vast majority of EMAS registrations (82 %) are in four countries (Germany, Spain, Italy and Austria) while Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovenia each had only one or no registrations. Many of the same Member States (Italy, Germany, Spain and Austria) are at the forefront of both EMAS and the EU Ecolabel implementation, with the noticeable exception of France, which is a leader for the EU Ecolabel only. Figure 9: Number of EMAS-registered organisations and sites per Member State (April 2014) Among the leading countries, the numbers of registrations in Germany have actually declined gradually since 2005, whereas for all other countries registrations remained steady or increased until 2012. In contrast, Spain and Italy experienced a steady growth year by year, with Italy starting at roughly the same level as Austria in 2005 and increasing to over 1 000 organisations by 2010. After increasing up until 2012, both Spain and Italy experienced a significant drop in registrations in 2013. This downward trend stopped in 2014 for Spain and Germany.

Figure 10: Changes in EMAS registrations over time for Member States Differences in uptake can also be observed among the different industrial and service sectors. This specific point will be analysed in more detail under point 7.2.5 of this report. 6.2 Adequacy of existing data monitoring The environmental impact of EMAS is directly connected to the number of registrations, while the effects of the EU Ecolabel are achieved if and when a product with the EU Ecolabel replaces a product with a worse environmental performance. However, even with market share data it would be impossible to estimate the environmental profile of the product that is replaced as data is not available for all products on the market. The EU Ecolabel is a voluntary tool, meaning that there may be products on the market with a similar or even better environmental profile than the EU Ecolabel but where the producer decides not to obtain the EU Ecolabel. Rather than providing a better understanding and quantification of the environmental impacts, an analysis of market share data would provide a better understanding of uptake, consumer recognition and recognition between different product groups. For some product groups with a low uptake by producers, market penetration must be assumed to be very low. For product groups for which no products have the EU Ecolabel, the figure is zero. For other product groups, such as cleaning products, paints and paper products, additional knowledge on market share could help us to better understand the role of the EU Ecolabel as a possible driver within certain product groups. It is possible that the EU Ecolabel has become more firmly established and recognised by consumers within certain product groups and for that reason producers have been driven to develop a product that fulfils the criteria. The lack of market share data in the monitoring of the EU Ecolabel scheme has prevented further analysis of the EU Ecolabel’s possible impact and differences in impact for specific product groups. Such data may be gathered directly or as estimations of market share provided by industry associations but should take into account the associated cost and potential burdens or issues of transparency that may negatively affect uptake by producers. For EMAS the situation is slightly different. As described in section 7.2.1, the environmental savings can be measured for organisations through the mandatory reporting on core indicators as part of their environmental statements. There is also a more direct link between the number of registrations and the environmental savings. However, as described in section 7.5.1, a difference has been identified between the environmental savings perceived and reported in the context of the stakeholder survey and the savings identified through the analysis of a sample of environmental statements. This suggests that the core indicators may not be equally valuable across all sectors. Indeed, although there can be similarities (e.g. energy consumption and water consumption) between industrial production sites and service providers, there can also be differences (e.g. material consumption or waste generation) where the results of the same indicators have to be interpreted differently. For both Regulations it should be remembered that asking those who participate in the schemes for more information would increase the schemes’ (at least indirect) compliance cost and thus make voluntary participation less attractive. However, it does not solve the general problem that there are no data available for the products and organisations that do not participate since there is currently no obligation to report this. The absence of market share data for EU-Ecolabelled products prevents a better understanding of consumer uptake and recognition and a better understanding of possible different dynamics within and between product groups. For EMAS the core indicators (especially for waste and material management) may not be the most appropriate for all organisations. Section 7 Answers to the evaluation questions 7.1 Relevance This section looks at the relationship between the needs and the problems of society and the objectives of the intervention. It has been guided by the following evaluation questions: Q1: Do the objectives of the Regulations still match societal needs? Q2: Are the Regulations consistent with current Commission policies in this field? Q3: How relevant are the Regulations for driving improvement in the environmental performance of products and organisations in the context of the sustainable consumption and production toolbox? 7.1.1. Relevance in terms of societal needs

According to the ‘European Environment — State and Outlook 2015 (SOER2015)’ synthesis report, current consumption and production patterns have significant environmental impacts. Europe continues to face considerable challenges and further action is needed to achieve the current environmental policy objectives. A summary of the environmental outlook for the next 20 years from SOER2015 (see table 1) shows that out of 20 indicators, 12 shows that we are only partly on track and 7 show that we are largely not on track to achieve key policy targets. The report notes that while policies and instruments are having a positive effect on reducing the environmental impacts of consumption and production, the economic crisis and the subsequent recession have also contributed to the overall reduction of some pressures. Although the environmental footprint of household consumption remains unsustainable and absolute material and water use has increased, the report highlights some results in decoupling environmental pressures from expenditures that have been achieved through improved eco-efficiency in the production of goods and services rather than by changing consumption patterns. While such effects from more efficient products may deliver real environmental benefits, chances are that these will be offset by increased consumption resulting from behavioural change or systemic responses known as the ‘rebound effect’ Table 4: Summary of environmental trends

The SOER makes it clear that living well within the earth’s ecological limit remains an issue to be addressed and will require a fundamental transition in the systems of production and consumption, which are at the root of environmental and climate pressures. As described in section 3.1. the SCP Action plan in general and the EU Ecolabel and EMAs specifically are intended to address these issues. Moreover, an increasing part of the environmental impact of European consumption occurs outside Europe, whereas most EU policies and instruments target lifecycle impacts of products that occur within Europe. The objectives of the EMAS and EU Ecolabel remain relevant to the task of matching societal needs because: ·there is a need to mitigate environmental impacts and to ensure protection of the environment; ·a transformation of consumption and production patterns is needed to stay within the earth’s ecological limits; ·there continues to be a need for appropriate policy responses. 7.1.2. Relevance in relation to recent policy objectives The second priority objective of the seventh environmental action programme (7EAP) is to turn the EU into a resource efficient, green and competitive low carbon economy. The programme calls for a framework that gives appropriate signals to producers and consumers to promote resource efficiency and the circular economy and for measures to be taken to improve the environmental performance of goods and services. The programme also calls for a more coherent and effective sustainable consumption and production policy framework, with a special focus on resource efficiency. The EU2020 strategy on sustainable and inclusive growth identifies a priority for a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy and the Resource efficiency roadmap builds on sustainable consumption and production as a way to stimulate environmental improvements and to support companies and organisations to grow while taking into consideration and exploring options to improve their environmental performance. The Commission's Communication on the circular economy explores the idea of reducing environmental impact of consumption and production by focusing on products with reduced environmental impact and more efficient (re)use and recycling of resources in the production and consumption phase. By focusing on keeping resources in the economy, the communication emphasises the link between the different life cycle stages and how resources can be kept or reintroduced into the circle through clever product design that allows for re-manufacturing, disassembly, reuse of components and recycled materials, minimal use of chemicals of concern that may prevent recycling, etc. The objectives of the EU Ecolabel and EMAS as environmental management, communication and transparency tools remain in line with the policy objectives outlined above. EMAS requires mandatory reporting on specific core indicators identified as relevant in the European context (e.g. material and energy efficiency or waste management) and offers an opportunity for integration with other environmental policies. The strategic potential to use EMAS in pursuit of specific EU environmental objectives (e.g. material and energy efficiency in the circular economy) and for policy integration (e.g. by open and transparent reporting and access to information) cannot be achieved through national or global schemes. The 2015 update of the ISO 14001 global environmental management system will incorporate some of the distinct features of EMAS. However, other distinct features continue to exist for EMAS (see Annex 3b). These include: a clear focus on the continuous improvement of environmental performances (ISO focuses on improving the management system); mandatory transparent reporting, including reporting on key indicators; an obligation on employee involvement; an obligation to demonstrate legal compliance. EU Ecolabel criteria are already reflecting circular economy concepts by setting requirements for e.g. recycled content, recyclability, reparability and longer life of products. The EU Ecolabel has already been used in support of the circular economy with such requirements for most product groups including textile products, converted paper products, wooden furniture, bed mattresses, imaging equipment, heat pumps, PCs and notebook computers. However, experience has also shown that some requirements such as re-manufacturing (e.g. of furniture) have not been possible to integrate. The strict rules on the use of hazardous substances laid down in Article 6(6) of the EU Ecolabel Regulation do not always support the use of some chemicals that could be relevant in the context of the circular economy, e.g. when chemicals which could be used to prolong durability or when their presence (if possible to determine) affects the ability to recycle. Similarly, the chemical content of secondary materials may not be possible to determine accurately to ensure adequate information and verification. This issue is recognised by the circular economy action plan and the work the Commission is doing with regard to the future EU strategy for a non-toxic environment. The objectives of the EU Ecolabel and EMAS remain relevant because: However: ·they are in line with recent strategic policy objectives including the EU2020 strategy, the resource efficiency roadmap, the 7EAP and the communication on the circular economy. ·while at a practical level, some synergies are already implemented, there are also issues (such as the interface between products and chemicals in a circular economy ) that are still to be addressed in the context of the recent communication on the circular economy. ·while both schemes address a relevant need (reduce the environmental impact of consumption and production); the ability to adequately address that need depends on the schemes' effectiveness both in their ability to identify enhanced environmental performance and to achieve uptake (see effectiveness 7.2).

7.1.3. Relevance to the sustainable consumption and production policy toolbox According to the 2014 environmental indicator report on environmental impacts of production and consumption systems in Europe, the scope of the current EU policy framework that regulates the life cycle impacts of the production-consumption system is limited to mostly addressing the direct impacts that occur within Europe. Policies that address the global environmental impacts of products and their consumption are still at their very early stages, except for those on the energy efficiency of energy related products, for which both the Ecodesign and the Energy label Directives are in place. The review of the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Directives (published July 2015) concluded that the ecodesign and energy labelling measures in place are effective in that they bring tangible and substantial energy and cost savings. They do so by both setting minimum efficiency requirements for access to the European Market for energy-related products and by offering the best performers the opportunity to showcase that through the use of the mandatory Energy Label. The review found that although some measures have addressed environmental impacts other than energy in the use phase, potential for further reduction of such impacts exists, for example on aspects of durability, reparability, reusability, recyclability, and recoverability, recycled content, use of priority materials, hazardous substances. It concluded that these issues can be taken up more systematically under ecodesign measures without the need for changing the legislative framework. In the Circular Economy Action Plan of December 2015 the Commission committed to promote the reparability, upgradability, durability, and recyclability of energy-related products by developing product requirements relevant to the circular economy in its future work under the Ecodesign Directive, as appropriate and taking into account the specificities of different product groups. EMAS and the EU Ecolabel, along with green public procurement, are the only policies at EU level that focus on environmental excellence and on continuous environmental improvement while addressing the overall environmental impact. Whereas green public procurement focuses on the demand side, EMAS and EU Ecolabel focus on the supply side. With a focus on lifecycle impacts (i.e. impacts that happen in extraction, production, transport, use and disposal of products) impacts that happen outside the EU are addressed for imported products (as many products, parts of products or materials for products are imported). While Ecodesign and the Energy Label can include requirements other than energy (technical or informational) they are still mainly focusing on energy consumption in the use phase. Finally, EMAS and the EU Ecolabel are the only tools at EU level that support / stimulate organisations and producers to consider being frontrunners. Rather than the more traditional regulative approach used in other aspects of SCP policy (e.g. Ecodesign and Energy Label directives), these two schemes follow different but complementary strategic path – incentivising market players to go beyond what is required by mandatory legislation in terms of reducing overall environmental impact. The Regulations remain relevant in the context of the sustainable consumption and production toolbox because: ·at EU level, EMAS and the EU Ecolabel are unique instruments that focus on the overall environmental impacts of organisations and products respectively; ·EMAS and the EU Ecolabel also address the major and increasing share of impacts from European consumption and production that happen outside Europe; ·EMAS and the EU Ecolabel are the only tools in the sustainable consumption and production toolbox that directly support organisations and producers who as frontrunners are willing to go beyond what is required by mandatory legislation. The supporting studies find that the role of the EU Ecolabel and EMAS are still useful and relevant as tools to improve overall environmental performance of products and organisations and to communicate environmental excellence.

7.1.4. Summary: Q1: Do the objectives match a societal need to mitigate the environmental impact of European consumption and production? The EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations and their objectives remain relevant as part of a package of tools to mitigate the environmental impact of consumption and production and are designed to play a specific role within that context. Whilst they respond to an identified societal need to mitigate the environmental impacts of European consumption and production, they focus on "frontrunners" who voluntarily wish to go further that the standard requirements. Q2: Are the Regulations consistent with current Commission policies in this field? Within this context, the EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations are in line with current Commission policies in this field including the EU2020 strategy for sustainable and inclusive growth, the resource efficiency roadmap, the seventh environmental action programme and the circular economy action plan. Q3: How relevant are the Regulations for driving improvement in the environmental performance of products and organisations in the context of the SCP toolbox? The EMAS and EU Ecolabel Regulations remain relevant to the extent that they have a unique focus (compared to other sustainable consumption and production tools) on the overall environmental impacts of organisations and products and in directly supporting organisations and producers who wish to focus on environmental excellence and continuous improvement, going beyond what is required in mandatory legislation. The EU Ecolabel is the only EU policy tool addressing overall environmental performance of products and EMAS is the only EU policy tool addressing overall environmental performance in organisations. Their ability to drive improvement is linked to their ability to identify environmental performance and generate uptake (see effectiveness below). 7.2. Effectiveness This section investigates how successful EU action has been in achieving or progressing towards its objectives. This part of the evaluation has been guided by the following questions: Q4: What links can be drawn between the measures taken and progress towards achieving the stated objectives? Q5: What are the main drivers and barriers to achieving the objectives and have these been addressed by the Regulations? Q6: What additional changes (positive or negative), if any, can be linked to the measures in the Regulations that go beyond what was expected? Why have they occurred? 7.2.1. Effectiveness: ensuring environmental performance (operational objective 1) As explained, there is no data available to compare performance differences between EMAS and non-EMAS registered businesses. However, when analysing the core indicators reported in environmental statements over time, the EMAS supporting study found that EMAS-registered companies had an average improvement rate for seven out of nine environmental parameters, experiencing savings on energy, water, emissions to air (SOx, NOx, PM and CO2) and for biodiversity (see Figure 11). For waste and material consumption, however, a negative evolution was observed on average, with a majority struggling to achieve their performance improvement. However, as reported under the ‘EU added value’ section, when questioned on this topic in the evaluation study survey, more than 75 % of EMAS-registered organisations reported experiencing improvements also on material efficiency and waste. This suggests that the ‘generic’ core indicators do not always correspond to the most relevant indicators for many companies that often go for very specific and targeted reductions (e.g. reduction in paper use). Moreover, applying indicators in the same manner to different sectors can be misleading (example, applying the waste outflow indicator to a waste treatment site).

The study also shows that positive effects increased for companies registered for more than four years. This suggests that a business which adopts EMAS tends over time to improve its environmental performance – which would seem logical, given that they have voluntarily committed to do so by registering with EMAS in the first place. Figure 11: Average environmental performance of EMAS-registered companies (%) For comparison, the evaluation study refers to recent research on the impacts of EMAS and ISO 14001 on the reduction of carbon anhydride emissions in 229 energy intensive plants in Italy. The research found that over the short term, ISO 14001 certified companies outperformed EMAS-registered organisations but that this was reversed over the longer term, with EMAS-registered organisations performing more strongly. This is explained by a stronger involvement of competent authorities in the verification phase; the opportunity EMAS provide for developing transparent and collaborative relations with relevant stakeholders and a stronger push towards continuous improvements. This is supported by the findings of the REMAS study performed in the UK and based on the data of 320 sites in Europe that concluded ‘there is evidence that overall environmental management is better under EMAS than under ISO14001; driven largely by better performance for Performance Monitoring, Documentation Control and Reporting Environmental Performance’. The EU Ecolabel rely on criteria developed based on a scientific assessment of the most significant environmental impacts and a qualified assessment of the most adequate pass-fail criteria for selected impacts; independence from specific industrial interest is ensured through the criteria development process (see annex 4d for more detail). In the absence of comprehensive data and an adequate methodology to set benchmarks, this process relies on extensive stakeholder consultation before criteria are agreed with Member States. The evaluation study found that the existing process ensures that criteria are set at a level that reflects the best performing products on the single market. However, it is impossible to say if the target of identifying the 10-20 % best performing products in terms of environmental performance is being met (the on-going work on the Product Environmental Footprint is in place to try and develop a methodology for this). This is the natural consequence of the lack of data and methodology for quantification and benchmarking and the complexity involved with the multi-criteria labelling and the life cycle stages covered. The evaluation study found that in cases where criteria are not timely updated to keep up with the latest developments, existing criteria may no longer reflect the best performing products. As shown in Annex 4 that the validity of criteria is often prolonged. This prolongation replaces a thorough revision of the criteria and their continued reference to environmental excellence. Revising criteria is resource intensive almost to the same extent as developing new criteria where market conditions and product performance have to be investigated. At the same time the sustainable consumption and production action plan and the impact assessment for the latest revision prioritised the inclusion of more product groups. Effectiveness in terms of ensuring environmental performance for organisations and products is facilitated because: However: ·EMAS-registered organisations deliver environmental benefits and products carrying the EU Ecolabel must live up to strict criteria reflecting improved environmental performance. ·Based on an analysis of a sample of environmental statements EMAS-registered organisations observed a negative development on the core indicators for waste and material. Further investigation of this indicates that the core indicators do not always reflect the specific situation in a sector or the actions actually taken. ·It is not possible to establish if the EU Ecolabel actually meets its objective of identifying products at the top 10-20 % of the market in terms of environmental performance. Barriers to assessing this include lack of methodology and data. ·When prolonged without revision EU Ecolabel criteria may no longer present environmental excellence.

7.2.2. Effectiveness: ensuring general uptake (operational objective 2) For both EMAS and the EU Ecolabel, the overall uptake by producers and organisations remains low. However, there is significant variation between different Member States and different product groups or types of organisations. For EMAS, the theoretical target of 23 000 sites mentioned in the impact assessment has not been achieved. This target was calculated based on the assumption that all Member States should reach the same level of registrations as the leading Member States. This did not happen and the leading Member States (Germany, Spain, Italy and Austria) still represent more than 80 % of the EMAS registrations. Reaching that target would require all Member States to also implement the actions (‘specific measures aiming at promoting the scheme’, ‘using its reporting dimension in combination with other policies’ and ‘recognising its capacity to trigger regulatory relief’) implemented by the leading Member States and emphasised by the regulation (Articles 32 to 38). As described in this section part of the reason that this has not happened can be seen in the combination of drivers and barriers. While, drivers for Members States to act rely on demand from organisations; demand from organisations rely on Member States delivering the benefits (e.g. through regulatory relief). For the EU Ecolabel, there has been an general increase in both licences and products since 2010 with the number of licences roughly doubling from 2010 to 2013. While, this is not necessarily an expression of its greater acceptance or penetration in individual product groups it shows an acceptance and effect of the label; even if it is difficult to compare across the different years. It also shows that while for some product groups uptake has been significant for other product groups it has been limited or for some even zero (see section 6.1.1). For EMAS, uptake increased by about 50 % from 2005 to 2012. Since then uptake has been decreasing mostly due to the economic crisis in Italy and Spain that impacted support measures but also the existence of some organisation. At the European level the number of registered organisation has also been influenced by the introduction in 2010 of the concept of ‘EU corporate registration’ that enables a single organisation to register multiple sites in different countries under one registration number only. Given the total numbers and the share of producers and organisations that have chosen to sign up for EMAS and the EU Ecolabel, the total environmental effects as a response to societal needs achieved directly by those products and organisations must be considered limited compared to mandatory regulation (see section 7.2.8) and not enough to ensure an absolut better state of the environment, even if individual environmental effects for organisations or products could be significant. Limitations in terms of uptake also means that taken in isolation the EU Ecolabel and EMAS generally have not been able to significantly affect the consumer market or create a general transformation of European production patterns although it may be the case for individual product groups or organisations. The two main barriers to better uptake by producers and organisations are: 1.Lack of awareness (market recognition) from consumers and business partners due to the lack of adequate and large-scale promotional activities. The impact assessment for the latest revision of the Regulation mentioned a medium-term objective that the EU Ecolabel should be recognised at the same level as the Nordic Swan and the Blue Angel labels in their respective countries. A Nordic study comparing national/regional schemes to the EU Ecolabel reported that the EU Ecolabel was recognised by about 25 % in Austria, less than 10 % in Germany, 35 % in Denmark, 20 % in Finland and 17 % in Sweden. The consumer market study on environmental claims for non-food products found that 36 % of consumers were aware of the EU Ecolabel, while 80 % were familiar with the term ‘recyclable’ and 69 % with the term ‘environmentally friendly’. The same study also found that the ‘Blue Angel’ was recognised by 90 % of Germans. In the Nordic countries, the average awareness of the ‘Nordic Ecolabel is 91 %. For EMAS, the survey conducted for the study concluded that the ‘lack of EMAS recognition from the market’ was the first barrier preventing organisations from opting for EMAS registration. This barrier is particularly strong in Member States where EMAS did not reach a significant number of registrations (this is the case in a majority of Member States). It remains a fact that ISO 14001 has a stronger foothold as the ‘licence to operate’ and hinders awareness and recognition of other schemes, irrespective of their environmental added value. 2.Lack of recognition of the instruments by public authorities. Producers often have expectations that products with an EU Ecolabel may benefit more directly e.g. through green public procurement, from a different tax relief or other privileged measures at Member State level (see discussion under 7.4.1). EMAS-registered organisations expect to benefit from regulatory relief, tax breaks or facilitated access to public procurement as a reward for their performance improvement and for their transparent and validated environmental reporting. This point was identified as the second main barrier in the EMAS survey. In general, the experience is that such expectations are not met in practice at Member State level, although there are significant variations. 3.The cost of compliance: (see section 7.3. on efficiency) The causes of this lack of awareness and recognition can be identified through the intervention logic in figure 2. They include the lack of resources invested in voluntary promotional activities performed by companies but also a weak implementation of regulatory activities in particular promotional activities and integration into environmental legislation — e.g. regulatory relief (see section 7.3. on efficiency).

For the supporting evaluation studies, companies and organisations reported that expectations of increased sales and access to public recognition are not met. Stakeholders report that they see the EU Ecolabel and EMAS as a way to respond to market pressure and showcase their eco-innovations. However, at least in part due to the barriers identified above, this is not always translated into increased competitiveness and market share. Nevertheless, many producers and organisations maintain their EU Ecolabel licence and EMAS registration. There are also specific barriers that have general relevance for effectiveness of uptake. For EMAS, the globally recognised ISO 14001 environmental management system is both the main barrier and competitor. EMAS provides a more credible and trustworthy scheme ensuring improved environmental performance. While the ISO 14001 management is integrated in EMAS, EMAS has additional requirements that provide greater transparency and accountability (in the form of public reporting), open reporting on important core environmental indicators (energy efficiency, material efficiency, water, waste, biodiversity and emissions to air), employee inclusion and a more stringent validation of legal compliance based on the Article 4.4 of the EMAS Regulation. However in the absence of greater awareness and recognition of this potential, ISO 14001 has become ‘the licence to operate’ on the market. These requirements are intended for better and more integrated environmental performance as well as openness and transparency that should benefit EMAS companies in their external communication and compliance management as well as facilitate regulatory relief. However at present these expectations are not being met in the vast majority of Member States. These also make EMAS slightly more expensive to operate and less flexible than ISO 14001, if or when such extra efforts are not sufficiently rewarded by the business partner or public authorities. For the EU Ecolabel, a barrier for producers is the number and rigidity of certain criteria requirements that companies in some cases must meet in order to obtain the EU Ecolabel. With an increase in the number of criteria, the time, resources and effort needed by companies to build the evidence pack to demonstrate compliance also increase. Moreover, the Regulation requires that adequate attention is paid to all aspects of a product’s impact throughout its life cycle and that environmental excellence is achieved. The strict reference to environmental excellence is also what ensures consumer trust in the EU Ecolabel and is what differentiates the EU Ecolabel from other environmental claims available for producers. Effectiveness in terms of uptake of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel has to be considered in light of their voluntary nature and their narrow focus on frontrunners, who will always be a small subset of the whole market. The analysis show that there is uptake of the schemes; that this has generally been increasing, but with significant variations. It also showed that effectiveness has been limited by the: The analysis under coherence (section 7.4) identifies factors linked to overlaps or potential confusions between instruments (e.g. Energy Label, EU Ecolabel and EMAS) that possibly could affect effectiveness. In addition: ·lack of recognition by business partners and consumers related to lack of promotional activities; ·lack of recognition and integration in environmental policy; ·cost of compliance. ·for EMAS, the advantages compared to the global competing scheme (ISO 14001) do not materialise sufficiently for EMAS organisations to significantly increase the uptake. ·The number and stringency of EU Ecolabel can be a barrier for uptake by producers This means that there is a trade-off between the need for solid requirements to demonstrate overall environmental excellence and the need for uptake by producers. Nevertheless, the EU Ecolabel supporting study suggests that environmental excellence could also be maintained with fewer criteria, although a full analysis of this has not been done. In any case, this would be product specific.



7.2.3. Differences in uptake among Member States Uptake of EMAS and the EU Ecolabel varies significantly and reflects the different levels of activities in Member States — including human and financial investments. Available data on Member State expenditure gathered during the supporting study indicate that between EUR 1 000 and EUR 900 000 is spent annually on implementing the EU Ecolabel. For EMAS, the responses received from Member States confirm that similar differences also exist. The total annual budget reported ranged from EUR 3 280 to EUR 285 000. Since European producers should apply for the EU Ecolabel in the country in which the products originates, country uptake also reflects different industrial patterns and strengths of different European Economic Area (EEA) countries. For instance, Denmark has focused on attracting the textile industry to the label while Italy and France have particularly high uptake in the tourism sector. For EMAS the situation is slightly different, with uptake largely dominated by four countries (82% of 4049 organisations registered in 2014). The relative success of EMAS in those four countries reflects the efforts that have been put into the scheme. The evaluation study on EMAS shows that the success of those efforts are not directly related to the number of activities, but rather to the effectiveness of the selected measures or groups of measures. Different effective long term strategies can be identified in countries such as Austria, Italy (tax credit and reduced permit fee), Spain (e.g. strong focus on a particular sector (tourism) and a specific effort on legislative liaison, resulting in EMAS being promoted in several Spanish environmental regulations) and Germany (where there has been a fuller integration of EMAS into environmental rules, including on exploiting the opportunities for regulatory relief). Other countries that took measures included Poland (in the waste sector), Greece (reduced insurance fee for environmental remediation), France (relief on environmental reporting). For the latter group of countries, these measures are, however, either too recent or not yet sufficiently promoted to close the registration gap with the top four countries listed above. It should be stressed that some existing measures related to regulatory relief, financial support or lower inspection frequency are in place that do result in preferential treatment of EMAS-registered organisations compared with ISO 14001-certified organisations. Member States justify those differentiated benefits through increased trust created by EMAS registration thanks to its unique validated reporting feature and its more stringent compliance requirements.

To complement the evaluation study an additional analysis of the different measures taken by the Member States has been conducted. This analysis was based on the measures reported by the different Member States to the Commission in the EMAS committee. The analysis confirms that countries with higher registration numbers undertake specific activities that are in line with those considered by EMAS-registered organisations as the most needed. Uptake in Member States is varied and fragmented and reflects: ·the different level of recognition and resources invested in the schemes; ·that a strong national label can both compete and coexist with the EU Ecolabel; and that the EU Ecolabel is most attractive to exporting companies; ·having systemic long-term strategies based on integrating benefits connecting the transparency and trustworthiness of EMAS to environmental policies, including through specific regulatory relief helps Member States achieve better uptake (i.e. over 1000 registered organisations). 7.2.4. Factors affecting uptake between EU Ecolabel product groups A number of product groups have limited or no uptake while others have a more significant uptake. Because of the difference in product groups (including the market) it is not possible to establish one horizontal measure for significance. However, the evaluation points to some factors contributing to difference in uptake. Article 6(6) of the EU Ecolabel Regulation states that no product that is awarded the EU Ecolabel may contain substances or preparations/mixtures meeting the criteria for classification of toxic, hazardous to the environment, carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction in accordance with the Regulation on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures. Article 6(7) lays down conditions for granting derogations to Article 6(6) and specifies which substances can never be contained in an article or in any homogeneous part of it at a concentration higher than 0.1 %. For a range of product groups such as imaging equipment, PCs, laptops, toilets and urinals, compliance with this provision has proven problematic for producers. This is particularly true for more complex products for which it is more difficult to have a complete inventory of the substances used in the different components, which often arrive from different suppliers. Article 6(6) aims to ensure that when consumers buy a product with an EU Ecolabel it does not contain hazardous substances. For certain consumer groups concerned about potential health or reproductive implications of hazardous substances, a ban has significant advantages and can ease communication. However, since only the presence of the chemical is examined rather than the risk it poses, the development of criteria does not take into account potential adverse environmental effects (e.g. when substitution results in decreased durability, as has been the case for paints). Article 6(6) illustrates the need to strike a balance between uptake by producers and uptake by consumers. Strict criteria and a ban on hazardous substances is a guarantee to consumers, but compliance can be burdensome for producers and could potentially lead to a ban on products that may contain hazardous chemicals while still having a low environmental impact. Specific product characteristics, the purchase situations and exposure to products with the label should have an impact on awareness and market opportunities. For instance, in Germany, using the Blue Angel label on school paper has helped raise awareness about the label. The EU Ecolabel evaluation study pointed to low awareness by consumers of the label being used for electrical products and that the considerations given to the purchasing decision were unclear when product groups were selected for the development of criteria. For electrical products, there can be an overlap with the mandatory Energy label, which is better known by consumers and retailers and maybe for that reason is the dominant factor in the consumers’ purchase decision. Although this aspect was not further analysed, the evaluation study also pointed to the fact that consumers on the whole have a high awareness of the EU Ecolabel for beauty care and cleaning products and that many of the product groups that are bought on a regular basis by a wider consumer base (e.g. soaps and shampoos, detergents, all purpose cleaners or tissue paper) are among the ones with higher uptake. However, some product groups with low uptake are not bought on a regular basis (e.g. computers, imaging equipment, toilets and urinals or water-based heaters). For such products, environmental and commercial gain could be achieved through large-scale public procurement activities, without contributing to raising the general exposure and awareness of the label. The 2008 sustainable consumption and production action plan stated that criteria should be developed for more products. Similarly, the EU Ecolabel Regulation mentions that in order to avoid proliferation of labels and to encourage higher environmental performance in all sectors, the possibility of using the EU Ecolabel should be extended. However, no specific guidelines on how these product groups should be selected and evaluated have been developed. No systematic investigation of the individual reasons for the lack of uptake among a significant set of product groups has been carried out. This results in lack of understanding about which type of product groups might perform well in terms of uptake. While some product groups have significant uptake, a significant number of product groups have limited or no uptake. Differences in uptake between product groups reflect: However: ·difficulties in complying with Article 6(6) which relates to the use of hazardous substances, which is a barrier to uptake for a range of products, including all IT products where there is an overlap with the Energy Label; ·the fact that health and hygiene related products have relatively high uptake and are traded quite frequently across a wide consumer base. ·there is a lack of knowledge about why certain products and types of products may perform well in terms of uptake; ·there is no strategic approach to select product groups for criteria development.

7.2.5. Factors affecting EMAS uptake among different types of organisations The EMAS scheme allows each organisation to establish indicators and targets based on its core activities and identified environmental impacts and in practice this leads to a reflection of industry issues. This means that EMAS is open to a wide range of sectors and organisations. The fact that 78 % of EMAS-registered organisations are SMEs (approx. 3160) confirms the scheme’s capacity to attract organisations of all sizes. According to the evaluation study, some specific industrial and service sectors account for the majority of EMAS registrations. Within the industrial sectors, ‘waste and disposal’ has dominated since 2009 with more than 400 registrations (approx. 10% of 2014 total), followed by ‘electricity, gas, steam and hot water production’, ‘chemicals’, ‘fabricated metal products’, and ‘food and beverages’. Those four sectors range from 150 to 250 registrations. In the service sector, ‘public administration’ is leading with more than 400 registrations, followed by ‘accommodation’, ‘activities of membership and organisations’, ‘education’ and ‘architectural and engineering activities, all ranging between 100 and 200 registrations. Although the evaluation study did not assess the extent to which the EMAS scheme appeals in each sector, the figures indicate that EMAS is particularly attractive for companies having a stronger link with the environment or resource issues as part of their main activities. This connection could be linked to a potentially higher environmental impact (e.g. for companies in industrial sectors) which would make EMAS a more useful as a tool to improve environmental management and achieve resource efficiency gains, avoid accidents and gain access to existing regulatory relief. However, the higher level of EMAS registrations in some sectors is also certainly due to the specific policies and incentives in the Member States to encourage EMAS registration in targeted sectors (such as waste in Poland, tourism in Spain, and SMEs in Italy). There is no clear understanding of what drives uptake of EMAS in different sectors, however: ·Registrations seem to be highest where the sector is engaged in activities more directly related to environmental issues or resource use and where EMAS may provide more direct benefits.

7.2.6. Additional effects Both schemes send a signal of support to organisations and producers that are willing to go further than what is required. Even when producers and organisations choose not to engage directly in the schemes, they can serve as an inspiration and a point of reference for others. This is the case for the EMAS sectoral reference documents, which are publicly available and can serve as a reference point for organisations that are trying to increase resource efficiency or reduce their environmental impact even if they are not applying for EMAS. The same holds for the EU Ecolabel, where the criteria development process is often followed by stakeholders including those that may deliberately choose different marketing strategies than the EU Ecolabel. EU Ecolabel criteria can serve both as reference for producers that want to decrease the environmental impact and resource use of their products and as a reference for public procurement tenders. When public tenders refer to the criteria underlying the EU Ecolabel, the criteria also becomes the benchmark for those companies that do not apply for the label. The latest revision of the ISO 14001 standard has taken inspiration i.a. from the EMAS Regulation and incorporates some of its distinct features, for example: environmental performance improvement as being the ultimate objective; better description of environmental aspects (as provided in the EMAS environmental review); revised management of compliance; and inclusion of an optional external communication that have been part of EMAS for a long time. In this case EMAS has acted as a driver for further environmental improvement and transparency for the many companies that will continue with a new and improved ISO standard. EMAS has therefore had an effect far beyond the number of EMAS registrations. This would confirm the importance of an EU-driven tool that can set the agenda and influence other (private) schemes. For the EU Ecolabel, the supporting study also pointed out that stakeholders gain valuable knowledge about the environmental profile of products and their processes. In some cases this can help rationalise the production process, leading to efficiency gains and environmental improvements. In addition to uptake, both the EMAS and the EU Ecolabel provide additional effects by: ·supporting producers and organisations willing to go beyond what is required by legislation; ·serving as an inspiration and point of reference for others to gain knowledge about the environmental profile of their products and processes or for purchase decisions; ·For EMAS, an additional effect should include its influence as a driver for some of the changes being made in the new global ISO standard that extends effects to many more companies. 7.2.7 Adaptation to barriers For the EU Ecolabel and EMAS, identical barriers to those referred above came up in the most recent revisions. For the EU Ecolabel Regulation the need for a common strategy on promotional activities was emphasised, while for EMAS Member States were asked to develop their own strategies, including further integration with environmental policies and incentives based on better regulation. A common strategy to promote the EU Ecolabel has not yet been developed and in many Member States a strategy to promote EMAS has either not been developed or has been developed without real ambitions. Perhaps more importantly, the potential success of such strategies depends on a clear identification of agreed priorities, appropriate division of responsibilities, clear and focused objectives as well as on the resources invested in commercial activities by all stakeholders. These are in general very limited. The evaluation study found that that the financial resources available to promote the uptake and improve the effectiveness of the EU Ecolabel in some Member States are limited or almost non-existent. Low budgets for implementing EMAS in some Member States indicate that the situation is the same for EMAS. The Commission has carried out some communication activities for both EMAS and the EU Ecolabel, but for the EU Ecolabel focus has rather been to develop criteria for more product groups in line with the 2008 sustainable consumption and production action plan and the EU Ecolabel Regulation. Similarly, the potential of integrating both EMAS and the EU Ecolabel into other environmental policies at Member State level (such as green public procurement or environmental inspection, and permitting regulatory relief) is recognised for both Regulations. However, success to a large extent depends on the implementation and level of ambition in individual Member States and there is no effective monitoring or enforcement in place. Existing examples show that reference to EMAS in EU legislation such as in the Industrial Emissions Directive or the Waste Directives can be followed by the creation of new benefits leading to an increase in registrations, provided that initiatives are taken jointly at EU and Member State level. The need to address issues such as more promotional activities and better integration with the implementation of other pieces of environmental legislation is reflected in the Regulations. However the number of activities or measures is not clearly set out and depends on the voluntary commitment from all stakeholders to carry out such activities, and there are no tools to ensure that this is monitored or enforced. The evaluation studies do not provide evidence to suggest that companies and organisations themselves take any significant measures to better target their commercial activities to align them with a promotion of the EU Ecolabel or EMAS. This could be done e.g. indirectly through reference that an environmental claim is qualified scientifically and independently verified by EMAS or the EU Ecolabel.

The introduction of Article 6(6) into the EU Ecolabel Regulation in 2010 created a new challenge to both the effectiveness and the efficiency of the scheme. While this has been recognised in the implementation and a pragmatic approach has been sought through negotiation and derogations in specific cases, the overall application still has to comply with the spirit and letter of the Regulation. This creates an obstacle to the uptake of the scheme by a wide range of product groups. In general, the results of the evaluation study indicate that EMAS organisations do not feel that reforms introduced by EMAS III have had a positive effect. The four main changes are ranked below from the most to the least effective: ·revised audit cycles for SMEs (Article 7); ·environmental core indicators (Annex IV); ·EMAS global (Article 3; Article 11); ·single EMAS logo (Article 10; Annex V). However, while most of those changes were intended to address specific barriers (costs for SMEs, international recognition, use of the logo, standardisation of reporting), none addressed the scheme’s key problem, namely a lack of recognition and specific benefits rewarding organisations for their performance, compliance and transparency. Although Article 33 of the EMAS Regulation requires the Member States to promote the scheme and to establish a promotion strategy the following articles that define the type of promotion measures to be implemented (Articles 34 to 38) leave to a great extent the assessment of the adequate support level to the appreciation of the Member States. For the EU Ecolabel the most recent revision also pointed to the need for: ·a further strengthening of the scientific basis for criteria; ·the possibility to include social and ethical aspects. Adaption to barriers has been attempted but has had limited impact because: ·effective implementation depends on Member States, but there are limited powers in the voluntary Regulations to ensure adequate monitoring and enforcement; ·the intended strategy has not been developed for EU Ecolabel and for both schemes there is a lack of clear agreed priorities, processes and division of responsibilities. Both issues are not easily integrated if the aim is to create a more effective and efficient scheme. We also need to consider the lack of available data and the need to reduce compliance costs which indicates the balance of sometimes opposing interests that is involved in running the scheme. 7.2.8. Effects in relation to other sustainable consumption and production policies The review of the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Directives found that Ecodesign and energy labelling measures are effective since they bring substantial energy and cost savings. The combined effects of the Directives are expected to deliver almost half of the 20 % energy efficiency target by 2020. However, as mentioned under the ‘relevance’ section, while policies addressing the energy efficiency of energy related products are well developed, policies addressing the environmental impact of products and their consumption are at an early stage. Moreover, such policies are information-based instruments (such as the EU Ecolabel) with limited effects on many consumers. For energy related products the Ecodesign and the Energy Labelling are mandatory applying to all products on the market ensuring effectiveness both through continuously eliminating the worst performing product on the market (Ecodesign) and by incentivising purchase of the best performing (Energy Label). The Energy Label can also more easily be integrated in Green Public Procurement with clear requirements for products to meet a certain Energy Labelling standard. This can be done because the Energy Label is (opposite the EU Ecolabel) a mandatory tool where all products who may live up to that standard also has the Energy Label to prove it. In addition, Annex 3 of the Energy Efficiency Directives states that Central Governments should - where a product is covered by Energy label requirements - purchase only the product that comply with the criterion belonging to the highest energy efficiency possible – when this is considered cost effective, economically feasible and in line with the need to ensure sufficient competition. For the products regulated by both Ecodesign and Energy Labelling it is estimated that the Energy Label delivers about one third of the total savings and Ecodesign the other two thirds. This shows that it is possible and effective to