Background Across the EU, organisations are resistant to efforts to move them quickly towards formalised environmental management systems. Where progress is being made (in terms of certification) it is often driven purely by legislative or market motivation. As a consequence, systematic management often loses its focus, from continual performance improvement to certification requirements. The increasing requirement for different environmental information means that the collation and aggregation of environmental data between numerous stakeholders is becoming increasingly impractical. In addition, EMS in itself does not always solve many of the problems surrounding environmental reporting and real performance improvements. EMS is a ‘binary’ system that has been developed, in the main, with large manufacturers in mind. This makes implementation by other groups (e.g. SMEs, local authorities, government departments, service, tourism and construction industries) fraught with difficulties. These problems are generic across all Member States. Objectives Epicentre aimed to support continuous improvement in environmental performance (EP) in organisations across the EU. The objectives of the project were to: - Achieve 5 EMAS registrations, - Develop innovative approaches and applications of the environmental performance evaluation model - Support knowledge and technology transfer from the more developed states to the less developed ones - Work with 250 organisations to develop a comprehensive set of environmental performance indicators that could be used to support accession reporting, resource management, green house gas emissions regulatory controls environmental reporting - Encourage capacity building of Regional Partners. Through the Epicentre partnership, the project aimed to improve interstate partnerships and dissemination channels with regional partners and other member and accession states. It planned to run ten dissemination workshops with regional partners and ten in other EU states. Results The Epicentre Project was a good project despite some problems along the way. Most of the project partners contributed significantly to the project and achieved some considerable successes, including the production of a new British Standard for the phased implementation of Environmental Management Systems. The main achievements of the project were as follows: - Development of an advanced model for applying EMS to achieve ISO 14001 and EMAS on a phased basis and localisation of the model in participant countries –particularly Spain. - A new British Standard (BS 8555:2003 Environmental Management Systems – Guide to the implementation of an environmental management system including the use of environmental performance evaluation). - Engagement of approximately 250 organisations across 8 sectors in 5 countries in the successful application of the model. - Take up of the model or roll-out activity in more than 10 countries - Successful deployment of the Supply Chain approach and the concurrent promotion of “shared learning” - Development of the Acorn website (http://www.life-epicentre.com/)which supplies free-to-use, guidance and user-friendly support to organisations - Development of five sets of Environmental Indicators to track EP for policy and regulatory purposes - The development of “EPITool” an on-line resource for developing Environmental performance indicators and tracking and recording performance data. - Establishment of the Pan-European “Epicentre Partnership”, members of which are now working collaboratively on a number of follow-on project activities. - Enhancement of the role and profile two international environmental best practice networks of: - INEM, the International Network of Environmental Management and; - IEMA, the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment - An informal assessment of the feasibility using aggregated environmental performance data to compare progress against environmental objectives across member’s states. The lessons to be learned from the project were: 1. There is still a widespread resistance from organisations to the adoption of formal EMS and environmental responsibility. The reasons for this are principally; - Slow progress of many of the large organisations and public authorities that should be leading environmental compliance and systems implementation in many countries. As with the quality standard ISO9001, it is these companies and organisations who will drive the awareness and engagement of the smaller organisations. - Lack of penetration of environmental concerns into the procurement decision-making process. - The perceived complexities and resource requirements for implementation, however this issue was addressed by the phased approach applied within the project. - Traditionally absence of quantifiable benefits from implementation, however organisations following the approach within the project gained earlier information and evidence of benefits through stronger focus on performance indicators. 2. The Supply Chain approach can be successful in engaging a large number of organisations that might otherwise not get involved in EMS. This is increasingly the case and it must be noted that market conditions in 2003, in this regard, were considerably improved to those of 2000 when Epicentre / Acorn were looking to recruit businesses. The Epicentre Partnership believe that the Epicentre (and BS8555) models will become more relevant with time and that take-up will increase as environmental supply-chain management is seen as an issue of corporate governance. 3. The Epicentre Project demonstrated that phased implementation through the Acorn model can remove the psychological barriers and enable organisations build the internal expertise and capability to implement EMS suitable to their circumstances. 4. Phased implementation and certification is welcomed by many organisations because it allows them to reach and maintain a level of progress suitable to their circumstances as well as enabling them to move to higher phases when circumstances change. 5. The primary barriers to EMS implementation by small and medium sized businesses are internal and revolve around a lack of human resources and not financial resources. The same body of research indicates that internal barriers to EMS adoption are more important than external ones. One of the key external barriers to EMS implementation is a lack of awareness of environmental issues amongst the key customer base for small companies and a lack of consultation with stakeholders leading to a false perception of significant issues. 6. Some form of financial assistance may be required to motivate the smaller organisations with conflicting priorities to implement EMS.