Brochure

The formal Environmental management systems (EMSs) ISO 14001 and EMAS are considered to be too expensive and bureaucratic for small and medium size enterprises(SMEs). Although the environmental impacts of individual enterprises often remain relatively low, the SMEs altogether are responsible for up to 70% of all industrial pollution. Experiences of some European less formal EMSs (ÖkoProfit in Austria and Germany, Miljöfyrtårn in Norway) show that  there is a great saving potential even in small companies especially in energy, water, sewage and waste management costs with quite small investments.

The development work of EcoStart environmental management system started in year 2003 in Etelä-Savo county.  After the inventory of different projects going on in Finland , the Jykes Oy (Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd) was chosen for a development partner, since it was developing a quite similar EMS for SMEs under the project Ympäristöaskeleet (Environmental Steps). A subsided service model developed by the Ministry of Trade and Industry was chosen for the basic tool for EcoStart. There are altogether 13 different subsided services, e.g. ProStart for the new born enterprises, DesignStart, Global etc. However no special service for managing environmental issues is available.

In september 2006 five Employment and Economic Development Centres have begun to offer the EcoStart consult service to the enterprises. The basic programme consists of 3-4 half-day workshops in the enterprise: Manufacturing/Service process; Supply, purchase and use of energy, Environmental impacts of products (only in EcoStart_Manufacturing) and the Preparation of environmental program. Totally the basic program includes 6-10 consultancy days. The subsidize that is paid for the enterprise by the Employment and Economic Development Centre depends on the size of the enterprise and can be up to 80 %.

EcoStart was presented in April 6-8 in 2006 in "12th International Sustainable Development Research Conference" in Hong Kong.

See the paper
and
PowerPoint-presentation