Environmental legislation
During the last decades have taken place several facts, like environmental accidents, problems of health, deterioration of the biospheres…that has caused an increase of social conscience regarding the conservation of the environment, and in consequence an increase in the related legislation.
There is a wide quantity of regulation in the matter. We can find some standards of obligatory implementation and others of voluntary implementation that have the recommendations character.
Legislation Levels
Según su campo de aplicación podemos clasificar According to their application field we can classify the environment standards in five different levels.
International
- Treaties and international agreements. The states should ratify them so that they go into effect. Some more outstanding examples: Conference of Stockholm in 1972, World Commission on environment and Development in 1987, Conference of the United Nations in River of Janeiro in 1992.
European
- EEC Directive (with conversion), CEE Regulations (without conversion) and CEE Decisions.
- The Europeans Directives need to be transferred to the internal right of each State. Most of the state environmental legislation arises from the transposition of the Community Directives. The regulation has the character of obligatory implementation and direct application in the whole community territory. European Legislation .
State
- Laws, Regulations, Ministerial Orders. The Regulations develop the Laws, summing up their content and assuring their execution. They are approved through Real Ordinances, ordinance Legislatives and Ordinances Law. The ministerial orders on the other hand, are legal dispositions in specific matters emitted by the ministries. Official bulletin of the state.
Autonomous
- Autonomous laws, ordinances and ordination-resolutions. Similar to the operation of the state legislation, the autonomous ordinances develop the autonomous laws.
- The State establishes the bases of the environmental legislation and the Autonomous Communities can develop them and to supplement them always fulfilling certain conditions.
Local
- Local statutes. Approved by the full of the City council. They regulate those matters competence of the municipality.
The Environment of the European Community Program of Action
It define a group of actions to develop for the Community relate with the environmental protection. They define the big action lines without going into concrete details.
The current “Sixth Program of Environmental Action of the European Community in environment material” (2001 – 2010) establish the goals and priorities of the environmental politics that will be part of the strategy of the European Community in favour of the sustainable development settles down.
Political instruments
The political instruments for the creation of an appropriate economic and juridical mark for the environment are the following ones:
Taxes and grants
- Concept “Who contaminates pay” pretend, the true environmental cost of the product, to be integrated in the price.
- Also, they try to establish grants for ecological products.
Voluntary agreements and standarization
- Measures non legislatives, as the environmental agreements or the systems of ecological certificates.
Legislation in public contracts
- To define environmental requirements in the public recruiting that could usually add approximately 16% of the GDP of a community.
Other legislative instruments
- New regulations, as the marked CE, for products that fulfill the minimum legal and technical requirements related with the security of the States members of the European Union.
Marks oriented for products
There are obligatory and voluntary marks. The main obligatory marks are the following ones:
Regarding the voluntary marks, the ISO standard regulates the ecologic labels that are well-known. There are three categories of labels:
Type I
Those are certified for a third party for the products that are environmentally preferable, in front of other similar ones in one category. They take into account different considerations related with the Life Cycle.
Type II
Type II take into account auto-declarations of environmental aspects of products to consider them as ecological products.
Type III
Type III consist on the environmental Declarations of product.
Environmental Systems
Some companies have also their own marked or recognition systems.
ISO 9001 – standards and guidelines developed by ISO that demand to the organizations to document their practices to assure the quality and their work procedures
ISO 14001 – Group of documents of environmental system that, once implanted, affects to all the aspects of the organization in their environmental responsibilities. They helps to treat environmental matters systematically, with the purpose of improving the environmental behaviour and the opportunities of having an economic benefit
System EMAS has as objective to promote the continuous improvement in organizations that already have implanted an Environmental System, carrying out independent audits periodically.
UNE 150301
Environmental System for the design process and development of products (Ecodesing)
Spanish standard for the Design and development Process of the products (Ecodesing). It target is to provide to the organizations the elements for having an effective system to design and develop products and services. It allows also to the organizations to incorporate a systematic identification, control and continuous improvement of the environmental aspects, associated to the products or services designed.
It is in perfect connection with other Environmental Systems of the companies.