The European Council decided that the strategic goal would be to transform the European Union until 2010 into the most dynamic, competitive and knowledge based community in the World. In order to achieve it, the European Union tries to get more actively involved in development of economic, social and environmental activities. From the environmental point of view it means that there is the necessity of introducing the principles of sustainable production and consumption as well as conservation of natural resources and sustainable management of these resources.

One of the mechanisms which allows to achieve this goal are the environmental management systems (EMS). Owing to implementation of EMS, organizations (companies and all other institutions like state and local governments, hospitals, schools, public institutions, etc.) voluntarily work out a coherent strategy of environmental activities aimed at improved performance which also takes some of the legal enforcement tasks away from the public administration bodies.

An example of a formal environmental management system is a system according to ISO 14001 standard. The European Union has made a step forward trying to stress the role of industry in stimulating the economic development and putting particular emphasis on market mechanisms which get the organizations actively involved in the process of achieving environmental and legal compliance. The Regulation on Eco-management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) was adopted in June 1993 and entered into force in April 1995. It put an obligation on all member states to establish the administrative infrastructure which would allow organizations to get registered in the EMAS system. The conditions for registration were: implementation of environmental management system in accordance with EMAS Regulation, publishing of environmental statement and getting both verified and approved by an independent verifier.

The new EMAS Regulation No 761/2001 (EMAS II), which was adopted in 2001, revised the scheme so that the scope of EMAS was extended to all sectors of economic activity as well as public sector (including local authorities).The basic assumption of EMAS is to distinguish and appreciate (through allowing them to use EMAS logo) these organizations which show legal compliance and voluntarily and continuously improve their environmental performance.

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