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authorities apply the management system to certain sectors of their admin-
istration or certify their whole operations.
A national example for an environmental certification system is the Nor-
wegian Eco-Lighthouse Programme. Through the programme companies
reduce their impact on the environment, cut costs and benefit from their
status as an environmentally responsible company. The “Eco-Lighthouse”
concept was born in 1996, when six municipalities were selected to par-
ticipate in “Sustainable Communities,” a Norwegian Local Agenda 21 pilot
programme. The city authorities presented a proposal to nine companies as
diverse as a hotel, a housepainter, an ice-cream factory and a wood product
company. The city paid a consultant to do an environmental audit and draw
up a three-year plan for reducing resource consumption and environmental
impact. In return, the firms undertook to carry out the plan and share their
experiences with other firms in the same industry. Based on the audits, cri-
teria for local, industry-specific environmental certification schemes were
developed.
The concept spread further and since 2006, the Norwegian capital Oslo has
required Eco-Lighthouse certifica.tion from all its public enterprises, from hos-
pitals to waste management facilities and down to kindergartens.
tax payers are interested in where their money goes, and as consumers they
want to know what the company providing their goods is doing to protect
the climate. Give them the opportunity to participate too. Here it can be use-
ful to involve the media in telling people about what you are doing.
The whole scheme will obviously need adapting to the group concerned:
what works well on a country-wide scale may be rather too elaborate and
complex for an SME or an NGO, for example. This organizational set-up
in a cycle is closely aligned with the approach employed in environmental
management systems.