Objectives And Benefits Of An Environmental Performance Evaluation 5y68e

Objectives and Benefits of an Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE) Programme KALAICHELVI NITHY DEVAN VINTHYA

Environmental Performance Evaluation 1. Environmental performance evaluation → is a sub-theme of environmental management.

2. Environmental performance evaluation (EPE) • is a tool to identify areas for improvement • providing performance trends over time in order to understand, demonstrate and improve performance using reliable key performance indicators.

BS EN ISO 14031 Environmental performance evaluation - Guidelines

• sets out a process to help an organisation improve environmental performance. • It provides a set of tools to identify, measure, assess and communicate environmental performance using key performance indicators (KPIs), based on reliable and verifiable information. • These standards provide powerful tools for organisations, giving them a means to track their progress towards a more circular and sustainable economy.

How does Environmental Performance Evaluation work?

• Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE) • provides a robust and repeatable process to compare past and present environmental performance using KPIs. • It helps organizations determine trends, evaluate risk and identify its strategic objectives and targets. • EPE can also be used to report and communicate information on the organization’s environmental performance to demonstrate its commitment to improvement.

BS EN ISO 14031 sets out three types of indicators: 1. Environmental condition indicators (ECI)  for presenting achievements in context

2. Operational performance indicators (OPI)  used to demonstrate change in resource use

3. Management performance indicators

What are the benefits of BS EN ISO 14031?

• Improved identification and understanding of environmental aspects and impacts • The use of indicators can help identify areas that have the potential to become more circular and sustainable, e.g. the proportion of recycled and renewable materials in a product or process • The use of indicators can help identify processes to the more efficient use of resources • Stronger environmental performance gives greater assurance to stakeholders and can increase both credibility and reputation

• s implementation management system

of

an

environmental

• because environmental performance evaluation can help identify significant risks, set objectives and targets, and track performance

• Recognition of good performance management •

can help an organisation with compliance with legislation, potentially reducing annual charges for permits and consents

• Organisations can harmonise and streamline significant performance indicators in sectors, assisting benchmarking

EXAMPLE

DUPONT: INTERGRATING ENVIRONMENTAL WITH BUSINESS PERFORMANCE MEASURES

1. DuPont is a large chemical and energy company serving global markets. 2.

Its key achievement in environmental metrics is the integrationof environmental thinking into the business process.

3. The company’s vision has gone beyond compliance and environmental outputs by measuring environmental innovations in of such traditional business measures as reduced costs, improved product yield, and increased market share and stockholder value. 4. Ultimately, environmental improvement is viewed not only as a reduced cost or liability, but as a business opportunity. 5. This vision is compatible with the concept of sustainability: creating economic growth without increasing adverse environmental impacts. It is a vision that cuts across all business functions, including operations, sales, R&D, marketing, and finance.

Goals 1. DuPont’s first step toward sustainability was •

the development of corporate stretch goals.

2. The goals include: *eliminating all injuries, illnesses,incidents, waste and way of improving business performance.

emissions as a

*This step has simplified measurement of environmental performance and stimulated continuous improvement throughout the company .

 The R&D organization was able to substitute a relatively non-toxic chemical for hydroquinone, a suspected carcinogen, and use 25% -40% less chemicals than traditional systems.  Further improvements led the team to develop aclosed loop recycling system so that customers could return the chemicals in their original packages to DuPont.  The company is then able to regenerate the chemicals and resell them.  As a result, 370,000 tons less effluent was sent down the drain, DuPont generated $0.5 million in new business, and DuCare became the leading product offered to graphic arts customers.



DuPont is currently working on developing a metric that will define sustainability in of its four stakeholders: stockholders, society, employees, and customers/consumers.  DuPont has defined stockholder improvement as increasing shareholder value, and is just beginning to develop a metric for the other stakeholders of sustainable development.

However, experience is showing that environmental progress is also

leading to improvements in business performance. Although other factors for muchof this increase, DuPont’s experience shows that business metrics and environmental metrics are indeed related.

Benefits Environmental performance evaluation helps with: • Price/ cost management • Compliance • Competitive advantage • Brand/ reputation • Attracting investment • Mitigation of environmental issues • 'Due diligence' • Competency assessment. • Data generated by EPE standards can be used to create positive and effective, linked non-financial and financial corporate reporting to achieve real business value. • Implementation reduces business risks over time and identifies areas for improvement.