Background The current environmental management systems available on the market such as EMAS (the EU Eco-Management & Audit Scheme) or DIN EN ISO are not suitable for SMEs because they were designed in the first place for large companies, because SMEs generally do not have the financial and personnel resources to introduce them, and because SMEs are an extremely heterogeneous group. On the basis of this, in 2001 the Hessen Environmental Alliance, an agency within the Hessen Ministry for Environment, Rural Regions and Consumer Protection, took on the task of designing a management system tailor-made to suit the needs of SMEs. EcoStep was developed between then and 2004. This is an integrated management system which takes into account such aspects as environmental protection, quality assurance and labour protection on an equal par with the operational work sequences of a company. By the end of 2004 EcoStep had not only been tried in theory but also in practice. However, at this time there were still some decisive aspects missing. These were developed with financing through the EU Life Programme from 2004 to 2007. EcoStep is a system for SMEs (up to 50 employees) combining environmental, quality and labour protection management. The system is supported by a new financing concept known as 'Management Contracting'. The idea is to keep the costs for environmental health and safety (EH&S) at current levels for the client company for a number of years (payback period), and to have the contractor invest in optimising the EH&S processes (management and technical). The contractor then receives the savings of these optimisations during the payback period as amortisation for the initial investment. After the payback period, the client gains the savings and the contractor exits the engagement. Objectives The project was to introduce the EcoStep management system to selected SMEs through workshops and consulting. This would be a first step towards making EcoStep operational across the entire European SMEs sector. A secondary objective was to make EcoStep Viniculture the accepted model for the small-scale agriculture sector. EcoStep was to be the model for family and supplementary income enterprises in the agricultural sector. Lastly, the project envisioned that EcoStep would ultimately enable participating businesses to obtain additional accreditation, in particular EMAS, with little supplementary expenditure. Results The project team developed the first integrated, process-oriented management system for SMEs to full maturity and implemented it across some 50 businesses. It offers quality environmental performance improvement and labour security in one system – including external audit – for a fixed price. It has also been granted so-called system certification, making it a real alternative to ISO, EMAS and OHSAS certificates. Thes participating businesses were in the viticulture sector in Germany, Italy and France. Impressively, the project showed that an integrated management is possible and reasonable for SMEs even of very small sizes (companies with 5 to 25 employees). What made the process innovative above all is the broad support it received regarding joint development across ministries, consultancies, business associations, universities, and other sector stakeholders, for the purpose of adjusting things to a manageable process for ‘real’ SMEs. Differences and advantages of EcoStep compared to other integrated approaches: - EcoStep is the first certifiable integrated management system. - It is open to further specific standards (e.g. International Food Standard [IFS] for wineries) - There are minimum external and internal costs for implementation and minimum "paper work". - An extremely low price for external certification has been negotiated. Furthermore, the EcoStep process has proven its transferability to different sectors and also to different countries. Its flexibility to adapt to and take on board further standards is one of its key features.