EMPRESS - Platform for Sustainable Consumption and Production - was established as an association of leading SCP experts in 2008 as part of the Sustainable Production and Services Partnership project. This project focused on developing a methodology for diagnosing opportunities for eco-efficient SCP innovation in enterprises. The methodology has also been successfully tested in the parallel project Partnership for Sustainable Consumption and Production (for more on projects see Projects) and EMPRESS was established as a platform for further dissemination of these procedures.

EMPRESS existed in the Czech Republic as early as 2004 - 2007 as an international project for the implementation of energy management by paying the cost of its implementation from verified savings. The project was called the “Energy Management Performance Related Energy Savings Scheme” (hence the abbreviation EMPRESS, for more on this source project see Projects). EMPRESS as was established with the support of the original project holders UNEP and ENVIROS, Ltd. took over the name of the project and continues to use the capacities created in this initiation project.