A survey on the application of the EMAS regulation in Italian firm clusters

Ever since its first version, the EMAS Regulation has represented a point of reference for enterprises seeking to continuously improve their environmental performances. The literature on this topic is quite abundant but has concentrated, until now, mostly on the determination of the effectiveness of the scheme, leaving out other aspects. The present work intends to partially fill this gap by presenting the results of survey jointly conducted by the Department of Business and Law of “Roma Tre” University and ISPRA (High Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) on Italian firm clusters within which a so-called managing committee (MC) – which has received a dedicated EMAS certificate– coordinates the implementation of the scheme. The main objective of this research has been to verify the effectiveness of the actions taken by the various managing committees in line with the official guidelines provided by the Italian competent body (EcoLabel and EcoAudit Committee - ELEAC). Indeed, according to the content of a recent position paper issued by the ELEAC, the MCs that possess an EMAS certificate should support registered organizations of their cluster in a number of ways. In order to achieve our objective, two specific questionnaires - one for the MCs, the other for the firms operating inside the considered clusters– have been designed. The data analysis indicates that the actions of the MCs has been particularly effective regarding the improvement of the stakeholder relationships and of their perception of the environmental performances of the cluster, also because of the enhanced external communication. However, relevant improvement margins have been found when considering internal communication between the MCs and the organizations. The actions of the managing committees have also been found to be scarcely effective in terms of financial support and bureaucratic-administrative simplifications provided to the organizations. Our results suggest that EMAS can be the right tool to help the Italian clusters revitalize their business by concentrating on the enrichment of the value proposition with elements of environmental sustainability of the production of goods and services and by exploiting the possibility of obtaining financial support by the European Union. A more in-depth analysis of the examined phenomenon will require further surveys to be carried out in order to investigate the opinions of particular categories of subjects that are present in the examined clusters (in particular: public local authorities, citizens and non-registered firms).