Revising the environmental performance of Baltic Cities

UBCÝs Municipal Environmental Auditing -project

UBCÝs Commission on Environment has, on 1 March 1996, launched a project which aims at developing a system for auditing environmental performance in Baltic Sea cities. In the long run the plan will support the development of city specific environmental strategies and their planning. The project is directed towards preventing environmental problems and it supports sustainable development in the cities of the Baltic Sea area. The project is being financed by the EU's Life program and partly by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment. It is part of HELCOM`s Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Plan (JCP) and is the first concrete input from UBC in implementing the latter plan.

The project is lead by specialists from Helsinki, Tallinn and Turku. Photo: Esko Sorakunnas The project manager Mr Ilppo Vuorinen (left) and a member of the international steering group, Mr Peter Gavelin from Sweden. Photo: Esko Sorakunnas

The MEA-project is based on the concept of environmental audit, which was originally developed in the business world. In this project the concept will be revised to suit the cities of the Baltic Sea region and the problems typical to them. The objective is to create a reliable, comprehensive and impartial method to be used in evaluating the state of the environment and the environmental consequences arising from different actions. External and internal auditing Municipal environmental auditing is a part of the environmental management scheme, in which the environmental performance of a city is revised by external auditors in an objective and documented way. The auditing will produce feedback relative to the environmental policy and management systems of the city. Two basic types of auditing are internal and external audits. An external audit is basically a report of the effects of urban activities on the state of the environment, while internal auditing concerns the city itself, its officers, regulations and even public awareness and participation in environmental matters. On the way to sustainability The project will develop the means of evaluating the level of awareness the citizens and officials possess on the state of their environment. Furthermore, it will provide insight into whether or not the level of knowledge enables the reliable assessment of projects which have an influence on the environment. MEA will also help to make environmentally sustainable investment decisions in the municipalities, detect the critical environmental issues, and reveal the weaknesses in the environmental behaviour of cities. Dissemination of results The cities of Turku and Helsinki in Finland as well as Tallinn in Estonia will, as members of the UBC, be responsible for the project. The first result of the project will be a handbook on environmental auditing for Baltic Sea area cities. The second goal is to carry out the environmental auditing of Tallinn, which will set an example for other cities. The intention is to disseminate these results to other Baltic Sea area cities for utilization in their activities. This will be achieved by organising seminars and workshops in various cities. For further information, please contact the project manager Mr Ilppo Vuorinen or fax +358 2 253 8613 or the project coordinator Ms Kaja Hannus, fax +372 6579002. Back to the Table of Contents