Text from the Indicator Report 2022
EMAS is a voluntary instrument of the European Union that helps organisations of any size and in any sector to continuously improve their environmental performance. Having EMAS certification does not automatically mean that organisations or their products are more environmentally friendly than comparable organisations and products. EMAS involves a reporting obligation requiring organisations to submit environmental statements. These statements include reporting on the main environmental impacts of the organisation in question as well as data pertaining to energy and material efficiency, emissions, water, waste and use of land/biodiversity. Organisations have to update their environmental statements annually, with the exception introduced in 2010 that small and medium-sized enterprises can apply to do so every two years instead. The environmental statement, which is public, and various additional internal documents are inspected by independent, licensed environmental verifiers. The verification must be repeated on a regular basis, no less than every three years. Organisations that pass the verification process and have no breaches of environmental regulations or complaints to answer for are added to the EMAS register. The German EMAS Advisory Board1 is responsible for quality assurance. EMAS organisations and locations are registered by the responsible chambers of industry and commerce and stored in a publicly accessible database at the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
In terms of methodology, it should be noted that the EMAS register shows the number of registrations. Participating organisations are free to include several locations under a single organisation registration (corporate registration) or to have their locations registered individually. Some organisations have had their sites abroad registered in Germany. These are present in the EMAS register, but they are not included in the number of EMAS locations recorded here.
In 2021, there were 2,290 EMAS locations registered in Germany. This equates to an increase of 17 % compared with 2005. Considered over the last five years, the indicator has been gradually moving in the direction of the target. Nevertheless, if that trend continues unchanged, the goal for 2030 will not be achieved.
The registered organisations employed a total of 911,042 people in 2021. This equates to an decline of 5.2 % compared with 2005.
The 2,290 EMAS locations on the register in 2021 belong to 1,115 German organisations. The number of German organisations had shrunk by 25.2 % since 2005. Furthermore, those organisations were very well spread throughout the country. The majority were based in Baden-Württemberg (330) and Bavaria (296), followed by North Rhine-Westphalia (99). In contrast, there was just one registered organisation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Divided by sector, the distribution was as follows: 39.4 % of the German organisations represented the manufacturing industry, 8.2 % miscellaneous services, 8.0 % the education sector, 6.2 % areas of water supply, waste water and waste disposal and removal of environmental pollution as well as 6.1 % the hospitality industry. It should be noted that some of the organisations belong to more than one sector.
1The EMAS Advisory Board is an independent advisory body of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection.
