Remas aims to study the benefits of formal environmental management systems (EMS) and hopes to establish a direct link between the use of EMS and positive environmental performance. According to project manager Martyn Cheesbrough: “We believe environmental management systems can offer many benefits to companies and other stakeholders, but we are unable to prove their real value until we get a full, unequivocal picture of the various elements involved. This is precisely what remas is designed to do.”
For the research, Remas is inviting companies from the following sectors to take part: cement and lime, aluminium, organic and inorganic chemicals, iron and steel, paper and pulp, glass, refineries, power generation, food production and waste sectors. While the invitation is extended to UK and Irish companies initially, the study will be widened to firms in other European member states from January 2004 onwards. Participation will involve completing online a simple environmental performance and environmental management questionnaire and companies taking part will receive a free and confidential report benchmarking them against their sector and across the whole of Europe.
In the UK, cement maker Lafarge Cement UK has already signed up. Its environment manager Danny Lawrence said: “We warmly welcome the opportunity to work with Remas”.
