IT Solutions for EPI Management

Abstract

Measuring an organization’s impact on the environment with appropriate EPIs demands specific ICT solutions that support this task. At the same time, the realm of the upcoming, so called IT-for-Green approach, is to increase the environmental friendliness of companies and their processes by means of ICT. In this context, corporate environmental management information systems (CEMIS) have already become an indispensable tool in support of the environmental policies described in chapter “Environmental Performance”. However, conventional CEMIS alone are not sufficient for achieving this objective, as they serve mainly for ensuring legal compliance with relevant environmental laws and regulations in order to avoid financial sanctions from authorities. In this sense, these systems are not compliant with the results from the sustainability debate and with the required strong operational focus. Traditional systems fulfill the requirements entailed by the concept of sustainable development only to a very limited degree. For this reason, existing ICT tools will be reviewed and the benefit OEPI can append.