We adopted an environmental management system

Development of the environmental management system that has been implemented in the Nordic Council of Ministers' Office in Estonia began in October 2011. The system allows us to monitor and measure the impact on the environment of our activities and, where possible, to reduce and/or compensate for it – and we've already seen that our modest little office has both a direct and indirect impact on the world around us.

The management system currently in place in the organisation, which is a non-formal one based on EMAS requirements, enables environmental activities to be systematically integrated with its primary and support activities. The environmental principles and objectives of the office are set out in the environmental policy, which obliges us to:

• prevent, on an ongoing basis, the generation of pollution;
• reduce the environmental impact of our activities;
• observe environmental laws and other relevant regulations;
• review (and where necessary revise) the environmental objectives and duties of the organisation at least once a year; and
• implement the agreed environmental activities and record and archive documents related to environmental management.