ABSTRACT
Environmental policy is an area of growing interest in Greece as shown both by the passing of numerous regulatory acts and increasing societal concern since the early 1990s. Traditionally embedded in land use and urban planning policy and legislation, until the mid 1980s Greek environmental policy owes its legal and institutional emancipation from planning procedures to the development of an European Community environmental policy. The impetus given to environmental policy in Greece in the second half of the 1980s coincided with the adoption of the 1986 Single European Act at European Community level. Environmental audit, as a means of securing continuous improvement in environmental performance by industry, was practically unknown in Greece before the adoption of the European Union’s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) regulation. Community-based interest groups and consumers are seen within the EMAS strategy as potentially important partners in transforming the firm into a sustainable enterprise.
