The Managing Urban Europe-25 Project utilized and improved on the elements of the most recognised environmental management systems (EMS) to overcome the “structural failures” at the local level in 14 European municipalities. In this context it elaborated and tested an integrated management system for local governments to achieve a community based, integrated, practical and efficient management system for local sustainability applicable to the whole urban area in a variety of cities, towns, and/or counties in different European member and acceding states.

The Managing Urban Europe-25 Project produced a number of concrete outputs in form of documents: reports, guidelines, tools and methods for implementing Urban EMS/SUMS in European cities. As a result of the Managing Urban Europe-25 Project urban environmental management systems as well as urban sustainability management systems were introduced to a number of European cities. The methods, toolkits and training material were made available for other European cities. This in combination with extensive dissemination activities was expected to considerably strengthen the implementation of urban EMS/SMS in European cities and hopefully provided a feasible model and useful process towards implementing EMS / SUMS in all cities of EU-25. The experiments carried out by the more advanced cities on reporting, monitoring and assessment tools such as SEA and EIA was expected to result in important contributions to the European knowledge base on applications of EMS in municipal organisations. The results of the initial baseline study gave in turn important information on the state of the art of EMS in European cities and recommendations on further actions.