The Software Tool EMIS

Abstract

There are many of good reasons for a company to introduce environmental management tools, such as registering the company’s environmental relevant data, determining the impact on nature and communicating the non-confidential part of these data to the public. Environmental management is a very powerful approach for a company to evaluate the relevant impact on the environment and to find the most efficient way possible to reduce this impact. Publishing the impact on the environment and the efforts a company undertakes to reduce it will result in better public opinion, which is increasingly important today. Additionally it will give the consumer as well as other companies the possibility to choose the producer with the lowest impact. In some cases the right choice of the producer of a given product can be better for the environment than the choice of an other product (c.f. chapter 5). For a producer using a product as raw material for his production process it will also be less expensive to choose the raw material from the “best” producer, rather than to change his production technology due to using another raw material. For the comparison of different products in a LCA these site-specific data are necessary to obtain good results. As shown in chapter 5 large errors can occur if general production data (for example, production of 1 kg polyethylene) are used without taking into account the big differences between distinct production technologies. These errors can be so large that no sensible decision at all can be made. On the other hand the collection of data can be very expensive. So general data are needed for a “first look”, to evaluate quickly the relevant processes or activities in a production site. In a second step the collection of data can be reduced to a minimum and the audit can be performed in a more efficent way. General data can also be used for screening methods, for example to find new technologies and to help engineers or investors make their decisions.