The gas supply companies, in the widest sense of their activities (production, transport, distribution), have a long tradition in ensuring that networks and facilities are operated according to well-defined procedures. These procedures are the centrepiece of quality management systems. They are based on the general criteria of the series ISO 9000 and are currently being developed gas-specifically as EQAS (European Quality Assurance System) in CEN/TC 234 in order to adhere more efficiently to the procedures peculiar to the gas activities. Companies are more and more inclined to take into account environmental aspects since the series ISO 14000 resulting in EMAS (Environment Management System). As both the series and the system possess a similar structure, the measures to be taken are directly linked to the technical operations and therefore cannot be dissociated from them.

Environmental issues are expected to feature increasingly in CEN standardisation as the European Commission and its affiliated Member States press ahead with an array of proposals for potential directives. These directives are aimed at boosting the reduction of energy consumption, reducing emissions to air/water and, more generally, at forcing industry to consider any process which may have adverse impacts on the environment.

The CEN Sector Forum Gas Infrastructure (CEN/SFG_I) will take this opportunity to demonstrate through EQAS, the effectiveness of gas companies in this area who are continuously looking for the best technologies (although natural gas is by nature an environmentally friendly energy in comparison with other fossil fuels).

Environmental guides are other tools which CEN has introduced through its Technical Board Resolution C108/2000, by requesting the sector forums and their attached Technical Committees to implement the European Commission policy regarding standardisation.

This Technical Report, intended to be used when drafting or reviewing the standards of CEN/TC 234, does not claim to either lay down dedicated requirements for each operation described in each standard nor to set limit values (e.g. emissions) that would be the specific task of the experts in the working group concerned.

Rather, it serves the purpose of triggering an in-depth reflection on the environmental consequences whenever an operative action is planned or being executed. As a way of implementing the basic scheme it was agreed to accommodate the environmental indicators (EIs marked a to i) in the fields of Table 1 (numbered 1 to 49) which match operations/processes with installation/plant. For each field of the Table referenced then by a number and letters, the corresponding requirements are precisely described in Table 2 "Gas-specific Environmental Requirements".