The research project “EMA in SMEs” arose from a wider programme which Associazione Industriale Bresciana (AIB) launched about
three years ago to promote the diffusion of integrated management systems in local SMEs.
In this programme the environmental accounting system (EMA), linked with a quality costing, has represented an instrument
to overcome the reluctance of small companies towards management systems. First AIB developed basic evaluation check lists
consistent with the implemented environmental management systems (EMSs) and then it tested and improved them in ten different
pilot companies.
In the stage now in progress, AIB experts are implementing EMAs in companies having suitable accounting systems, or adapting
the existing ones to EMA requirements, with two main results:
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First: correct implementation of EMA. |
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Second, but no less important: the improvement of accounting systems of small companies and, consequently, also of their organisations. |
This paper will present three complete case studies of three SMEs that prior to the AIB Project had no system for measuring
and analysing environmental costs and which have now successfully implemented an EMA. For each case the identification and
quantification of environmental costs will be described, as well as the solutions adopted to identify and register them periodically
through the information systems.
The authors wish to thank the manager of “ECO 90” Office - Andrea Gandellini - for his support.
Associazione Industriale Bresciana (AIB) with its 1,500 associated members is one of the most important industry associations
in Italy. AIB is located in Brescia, which is the second largest city of Lombardy, with about 200,000 inhabitants, The Province
is one of Italy’s most important industrial centres, with over 90,000 companies employing half a million people.
For a discussion of the development of operative check lists to identify and quantify environmental costs see Venturelli and
Pilisi (2003).