The Energy Community Secretariat is committed to do its utmost to support the Contracting Parties in the transition to sustainable energy, in line with the numerous environmental and climate acts adopted by the Ministerial Council. At the same time, the Secretariat’s supporting role does not come without an adverse environmental impact. For instance, the Secretariat organized 98 official meetings, which were attended by approximately 2.700 participants in 2019. The participation to the Secretariat's events, together with the staff's travelling, amounted to roughly 3.6 million flight kilometers in 2019. These considerations resulted in a decision to engage in introducing the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) at the Secretariat.
The pages below highlight the Secretariat's latest EMAS performance, key principles and deliverables, including milestones of the project. The focus is put on measures particularly relevant to the Secretariat's staff and visitors to its premises.
EMAS in Brief
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Principle
Principle of continuous improvement
Committed to continuous improvement, EMAS certified organisations work in cycles. We complete our last actions while we already have started to draft the next programme. Regular review of our rules, registers and records assure checks and balances.
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Policy
Environmental Policy
As one of the first steps in the EMAS process, the Secretariat published its first Environmental Policy in July 2020. This paper underlines the commitment by the Secretariat, and particularly that of its top management, to continuously reduce its adverse environmental impacts.
The last policy update took place on 28 November 2022. While the core objectives have remained unchanged, there is greater emphasis on communicating EMAS and influencing, motivating and helping the ECS stakeholders to achieve better environmental performance.
The Policy objectives form the basis for the Secretariat’s environmental programme. An annual review of the Policy is an integral part of the ECS’s EMS management review.
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Aspects and impacts
Significant aspects and impacts
To be in a position to identify and quantify the Secretariat’s environmental footprint, the EMAS project team undertook a systematic review of all its environmental aspects and the corresponding environmental impacts related to its business activities in June 2020. The aspects and impacts are subject to regular reviews and are also tabled for discussion at the management review meetings. The fundamentals of the 2020 assessment are still valid.
All aspects with an overall rating of more than 2,5 are considered as significant (out of maximum 4). The Secretariat addresses these aspects particularly when identifying actions for its environmental programme.
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Programme
Environmental Programme
The objectives stated in the Environmental Policy constituted the starting point for the Environmental Programme. Each objective is supported by one or several targets. For each target, the EMAS team determines actions with clearly defined deliverables, deadlines and person in charge.
The programme is an internal working document, subject to regular review and updates. The Secretariat reports about the conducted actions in its Environmental Statements.
As regards the type of actions, we differentiate between the following:
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Statement
Environmental Statement
The Policy specifies the focus areas and the organization's objectives in terms of environmental performance. The environmental programme, in return, translates these objectives into an action plan with measurable targets. The targets are implemented by actions with a pre-determined deliverable and due date. The policy, the programme and the key performance indicators form the core elements of the statement.
The first 2021 Environmental Statement outlined the key achievements until end of 2020 with an outlook of the actions to be completed latest by end of 2021. In July 2022, solely the 2021 KPI data table was submitted to the competent Austrian body. The 2023 the statement was validated by an external auditor in September 2023. The 2025 validation is expected to be completed in July 2025, followed by the publication of the 2025 statement.