The VNU offers me the opportunity to contribute my experience with environmental and sustainability management, especially with EMAS - and at the same time to keep up to date with current developments.
Professional experience:
After completing his doctorate in physics, Dr Michael Schemmer initially held leading positions in research at AEG from 1982 onwards and then moved to central production engineering. When he took over the management of this division, he was also assigned the function of Group Environmental Officer, a position he held with the Chairman of the Board of Management. In 1996 he moved to the newly founded railway manufacturer Adtranz as Head of Environmental Protection/Safety, and from 2001 he took on the same global role at Bombardier Transportation.
During his various industrial activities, Michael Schemmer initiated environmental reporting at AEG and Adtranz, eco-design and environmental product declarations, the worldwide introduction and certification of environmental and safety management systems according to EMAS and ISO 14001/OHSAS 18001, CSR reporting at Bombardier and inclusion in the DJSI, as well as industry standards on ingredients and product declarations. In 2000, he was awarded the B.A.U.M. Environmental Prize for his achievements in favour of preventive and holistic environmental protection.
Honorary activities in environment-related association and standardisation work at national, European and international level included participation in the development and revision of ISO 14001 and EMAS. Since 1995, Michael Schemmer has been a member of the Environmental Verification Committee at the BMU, and was its chairman from 2007 to 2017.
After leaving industry, Dr Schemmer continues some of the activities with environmental policy relevance (e.g. monitoring the EU initiative on the Env. Footprint), advises small and medium-sized enterprises on the way to EMAS and teaches environmental management at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. He developed the EMAS toolkit for the EU Commission. He was a member of B.A.U.M since 1993 as a representative of AEG, Adtranz and Bombardier, and became a personal member in 2018. In 2021, he joined the VNU.