OekoBusiness Vienna

Vienna’s environmental service package for local companies

OekoBusiness Vienna was launched in 1998 by the Municipal Department for Environmental Protection (MA 22) on behalf of the Vienna City Administration. To date, more than 1,100 companies have participated in OekoBusiness Vienna, implementing more than 15,000 environmental projects and actions. Through appropriate environmental management practices, these enterprises have been able to generate substantial cost savings.
The success of OekoBusiness Vienna illustrates that the voluntary move to apply quality standards for sustainability that exceed legal requirements creates significant financial benefits.

Philosophy and objectives

OekoBusiness Vienna is enshrined in the SMART CITY VIENNA framework, the city’s long-term and holistic strategy to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The aim is to ensure the best quality of life for all of Vienna’s citizens and to save resources through comprehensive innovations. An important part of this aim is for companies in the city to do business in an environmentally sustainable way.
The purpose of OekoBusiness Vienna is to help companies generate „green and clean“ profits through environmental management practices that benefit both the environment and the companies, ensuring financial rewards and high quality for each company.

OekoBusiness Vienna aims to:

  • Reduce the adverse environmental impact of economic activity through integrated environmental protection strategies
  • Improve the competitive position of Viennese businesses through more efficient use of resources (making full use of innovative potential and cost-saving opportunities), sustaining employment over the medium term
  • Strengthen the advisory component in the relationship between the city administration and the private sector
  • Contribute to the sustainable development of the City of Vienna
  • Encourage the exchange of information, nationally and internationally, with city administrations and companies running similar programmes
  • Extend and support environmental protection efforts both nationally and internationally
  • Help move business performance, consumption, transport and administration in the City of Vienna toward greater sustainability

Three steps to becoming an OekoBusiness company

OekoBusiness Vienna funds certain consultancy services to encourage businesses to take action to reduce their environmental impact and to improve their corporate social responsibility performance. In individual meetings, consultants develop solutions tailored to the needs of each business. There are three steps to this process.

Step 1
Consultants working within the OekoBusiness Vienna network conduct a sustainability check-up together with the company to find savings potential and identify fields where the company’s environmental and social performance could be improved.

Step 2
Based on the results of step 1, the company management can decide whether to participate in the programme and select a suitable consultancy module.

Step 3
Supported by tailored consultancy services and expert input, the company develops its sustainability project(s) and begins implementing them during the first year of participation. An independent commission assesses the progress made and decides whether to award the company the OekoBusiness Vienna distinction. All measures taken are documented in the OekoBusiness Vienna database, which can be accessed publicly (unternehmen.oekobusiness.Vienna.at/unternehmen available in German only).

Benefits for the environment

A look at the results clearly shows that the environment is the real beneficiary of OekoBusiness Vienna. The following aggregate figures illustrate the effects achieved by businesses in Vienna since OekoBusiness Vienna was launched in 1998:

125,930 t

solid waste output reduced

1.54 TW h

final energy savings

443,000 t

carbon dioxide emissions avoided

150,8 mio. km

total transport mileage reduced

2.721 m3

drinking water consumption reduced

145,6 mill. EUR

operating expenses saved

The effort to integrate environmental policies and measures in economic activities throughout Vienna is backed by an evaluation report by the Austrian Institute for Industrial Ecology.  About 98 per cent of participants in OekoBusiness Vienna rated the programme as „excellent“ or „good“.

Businesses responded very positively to some of the programme’s strong points, including consultancy services, the incentive to make changes, the raising of environmental awareness, the opportunity for a systematic analysis of a business’s current situation, and the enhanced company image as a result of winning an award. The innovative impact of the measures proposed was also greatly appreciated by the participating businesses. The high-quality consultancy services provided by OekoBusiness Vienna have spawned a wide variety of new policies and measures.

In addition, the programme publishes a quarterly newsletter, which provides information on current developments relating to the programme itself and on outstanding measures and innovations by programme participants as well as relevant city news. OekoBusiness Vienna also offers networking opportunities to enhance the exchange with other companies and consultants. The regular business breakfast in particular is very well received. Each breakfast is hosted by a different participating company, which can present its measures directly on site.


OekoBusiness Vienna partners

OekoBusiness Vienna is based on interaction and cooperation among all partners, which is a major factor in the programme’s success.

Public authorities, interest groups and companies all work together on OekoBusiness Vienna to implement preventive and integrative environmental protection policies and actions that also benefit businesses‘ bottom line. Public subsidies are granted for consultancy and training, and capital investments are made by the private sector, in some cases with support from additional public sources.


International recognition

An important advantage of OekoBusiness Vienna is its universal applicability, which allows the programme as a whole, or individual aspects of the programme, to be implemented in other regions and countries. In 2004, five Austrian provinces (Lower Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Vorarlberg and Upper Austria) began cooperating with OekoBusiness Vienna by using the database. Now all nine Austrian provinces offer environmental consulting services to businesses and cooperate in further development with OekoBusiness Vienna. The European Union has provided €674,000 in support for various joint projects over the last 15 years. These funds were awarded within the framework of the INTERREG IIIA „Vienna-Györ“ project, which focuses on energy efficiency and exchange of training between the Hungarian city of Györ and Vienna. Other environmentally conscious cities such as Athens, the capital of Greece, and Chennai (Madras), India’s fourth-largest city, are developing OekoBusiness programmes of their own modelled on Vienna’s programme.

UN Habitat has included OekoBusiness Vienna in its Best Practices Database, which lists the best sustainability projects worldwide. Likewise, the European Commission regards the environmental service package of the City of Vienna as an example of best practices.