Summary

Today, corporate policy attaches an equal level of importance to environmental protection as, for example, to product quality, production efficiency, and the safety of personnel and equipment. This represents a special challenge for newspaper operations, as their journalistic connection means that they have to fulfil an exemplary function. They are simultaneously the voice and the object of environmental protection. Accordingly, newspaper operations began to establish environment management systems early on, and issue environmental statements in the form of ecological balance sheets. However, they are often confronted with the accusation that professional journalism always finds ways and means to present itself to the public in a favourable light. For this reason, the certification of a neutral expert is desired. In the United Kingdom, this has been achieved at national level with the British BS 7750 standard. At European level, the EU Ecological Audit Directive is scheduled to come into force with effect from April 1995, and work is being carried out on the IS0 14.000 standard for worldwide application. In order to provide our members with a guide through the conducting of environmental audits that lead to certification, we have prepared this Special Report in cooperation with the "Darmstädter Echo" newspaper in Darmstadt, Germany, its Technical Director Michael Glück, and the environment management consulting company, Trischler und Partner in Dillingen/Saar, also Germany. It takes as a case study a technical environmental audit that was conducted at the "Darmstädter Echo" in summer 1994, and refers also to the EU Ecological Audit Directive of the European Union. The fact that the principles of environment management have a largely universal application mean that their content should be of use also to our members based outside of Europe.