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Welcome to INEM, the International Network for Environmental Management

This platform is the entry point to the knowledge and offerings of our worldwide network of entrepreneurial sustainability. It gives you access to best practices of environmental management in industries as well as small and medium sized companies. You will find tools for the implementation of ISO and EMAS standards, an international events calendar and more than 6.000 publications on energy, waste and water topics.

The International Network for Environmental Management e.V. (INEM), founded in 1991, is the world federation of non-profit national business associations for environmental management with about 30 member associations and cleaner production centres in 25 countries.

The purpose of this non-for-profit association is the promotion of

  • the protection of the environment, especially of the water, the soil and the air, as well as the protection of animals and plants from ecological damage;
  • the protection of human health;
  • science and scientific research, especially in the field of environmental protection.

Find further information about INEMs´goals here.



Remembrance on Georg Winter

With Georg Winter's passing, we have lost one of the greatest pioneers of sustainable management. And the founder, switchman and never resting supporter of INEM.

Georg’s wish to build a sustainable world dates back to his school-time. At the age of 11, Georg wrote an essay in which he envisioned to build “a nature reserve the size of Switzerland, free of noise and traffic, in which the animal world would be protected from extinction.” After studies in law and humanities, Georg took responsibility in the Ernst Winter & Sohn company, a 100 year old family business for all types of diamond tools, including saw blades for the natural stone industry and the early times of semi-conductors. Together with his brother and more than 1.500 employees in Germany and 15 other countries, they developed the company to a world leading producer of high-end tools.

While managing and growing the company in spatial, technological and economic terms, Georg did not give up his dream of a sustainable world. In the 1970s, he began implementing a series of measures to improve the environmental performance of their company. Activities ranged from reduced material use and optimal transports to growing organic food for the canteens. Georg developed and described the “Winter model for an integrated System of Environmental Management”. And together with the Winter company’s financial and later environmental controller Maximilian Gege he embarked on a crusade to convince other business owners and managers, policy makers and governments of the need for environmental management – and they were successful. First, they created the association which today is the BAUM e.V., now connecting more than 1.000 sustainability-oriented companies in Germany with each other and worldwide. Then in the early 1990s, Georg prepared the stage for INEM, the International Network of Environmental Management. This association quickly grew up with institutional members in more than 40 countries. Georg was the chairman of INEM until 2005. Since then, he always supported the INEM members and management as an honorary member and with generous donations.

It will be difficult to find a person as dedicated and talented as Georg. Not only mastering businesses, strategies and management, but as well convincing as a brilliant speaker, creator of tongue twisters and singer-song-writer. Once upon a time I heard Georg singing “I did it my way.” Yes, Georg, you did it your way. And you did it well.

Thank you, Georg, for being our inspirator, leader and friend. We will keep following the paths you have prepared. You may rest in peace!


Ludwig Karg, Chairman


PS: Those who want to learn more about Georgs’s visions and achievements may get the book “Toolmakers for the Future” (Wachholtz Verlag, ISBN 978-3529050770).