The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) is a law which aims to protect and improve the quality of all waters throughout the European Union. The key objectives of the Directive are to: protect and enhance the status of aquatic ecosystems promote sustainable use of water provide for sufficient supply of good quality water provide enhanced protection and...

Minimize potential environmental liability by ensuring that your business, employees and contractors understand: Legal & corporate requirements Their duties & obligations What to recognize What actions to take What and How to report Who is responsible Why it is important ECOS builds in-house expertise using a range of formal and informal training forums including one to...

The Water Services (Amendment) Act 2012  requires water services authorities to maintain a register of domestic waste water treatment systems in their functional areas. The Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) has developed a central on-line registration system and will manage the system on a shared-service basis for the water services authorities. Under the Act, owners...

Farmers have collaborated with scientists in France to evaluate agri-environmental measures that reduce soil erosion and surface water pollution at a catchment level. The exercise helped the farmers understand the benefits of the measures and provides an example of how policymakers could engage with stakeholders under the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The farmers helped develop...

Water Shortages and Water Charges: in summary there is not enough water and we must pay for what we use. ECOS helps all types of businesses to address their requirements in a sustainable manner, both economically and environmentally, by providing Expert environmental knowledge Independent advice Proactive solutions Reduce – Reuse – Recyle Water – Rainwater – Greywater...

The European Commission has announced the final and biggest ever set of calls for proposals for research under its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). €8.1 billion will support projects and ideas that will boost Europe’s competitiveness and tackle issues such as human health, protecting the environment and finding new solutions to growing challenges linked to urbanisation and...

In the 20-year gap between the two Rio summits (1992 – 2012), the earth’s population has grown from 5.4 billion to more than 7 billion – a leap of almost 30 %.  This has had a knock-on effect on global use of natural resources, in tandem with increasing per capita consumption levels. Although greenhouse gas...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a number of statutory roles which include: Licensing, enforcement, monitoring and research Communicating information about the quality of Ireland’s environment. The EPA is conducting a survey is to assess its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities in communicating environmental information to its stakeholders.  http://epa.ie/

Funding of €337,000 has been allocated to local authorities by Mr. Phil Hogan, T.D., Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to fund projects under the Local Agenda 21 (LA21) Environmental Partnership Fund 2012. Matching funding by local authorities will bring shared potential partnership funding to €674,000. The Fund promotes sustainable development by assisting small...

Tourism is a resource-intensive industry that leaves a big footprint on the environment.  More and more European hotels are thus adopting environmental management schemes which add value regarding: Legal compliance with environmental legislation; The measurement and evaluation of environmental performance against objectives and targets; Continuous improvement of that environmental performance; Strong employee involvement; Environmental core indicators facilitating...