Certification as a tool for environmental management

Certification following different International Standards and Regulations is widely spreading both among public administrations and private activities as a fundamental tool to apply sustainable development principles. The aim of this paper is to present, through real experiences, the different schemes of certification that can be applied by different types of organizations existing inside a city. Environmental certification of Italian public administrations such as the City of Forte dei Marmi and the Province of Siena certified against the international standards ISO 14001 [1] or the City of Varese Ligure certified against the European EMAS [2] regulations are shown. Applications of ISO 14001 and EMAS, together with other types of certification, such as EPD (Environmental Product Certification) following ISO 14040 [3] international standard, or quality and social certifications following respectively ISO 9001 [4] and SA 8000 [5] international standards are presented for industrial activities such as waste disposal societies, agricultural systems such as wine production, tourist activities such as hotels and camping, consulting societies, banks, etc. The paper shows how different schemes of certification, able to consider economic, environmental and social factors, employed contemporarily by the different organizations operating inside a city, can help to plan future development in order to make the city sustainable.