Strategy for producing environmental information formats

The framework for the procedure

Figure 2 The framework of principles and work stages for developing information structures for environmental management of industrial systems. (copyright R. Carlson 2006). Click on the picture to enlarge it!

Figure 2 is a schematic picture of the strategy presented here. The work-procedure presented by the figure is described in the following.

Limitations of applicability
At the bottom of figure 2 the limitations/the scope of the applicability for the strategy are listed. The strategy is developed and tested for:

• Environmental applications (not also for other aspects of sustainability). This means that the strategy is only intended for the complexities of environmental science and environmental information, the fact that most physical environmental consequences are delayed from the decisions and physical actions that caused them, and for the fact that environmental effects concerns physical changes in the environment caused by physical activities and substances. These aspects are here considered regarding environmental information, but it has not been investigated whether the same is true for other dimensions of sustainability information.
• This strategy is only intended when the information format is intended to contain information for decisions that controls a technical system (Cybernetic control situations – figure 3), like a production unit, a design project, a product life cycle or a material flow in the society. If the information is only intended for educational purposes, marketing make-up or purpose-free environmental activities the strategy is powerless and should not be applied.

Figure 3 A conceptual cybernetic control model describing environmental management. All variables changes and the information therefore need to be relevantly updated.

• Situations where costs for the information system is relevant. Many information systems have a well-defined business case. In such cases the actual cost that the information system generates need to be matched against the economic gains of the information system. This strategy is intended to optimize costs and gains of the information system by supporting an optimal scoping of the information format for which data need to be acquired and reviewed, and for which the intended audience needs to study. Information systems that either have no economic boundaries or have an unrealistically low budget are not addressed by this strategy.

Prerequisites for applying the strategy
The ‘In’-side of figure 2 lists the prerequisites necessary to succeed with identifying the format:

• The application of the format must be clearly defined. If target audience and application is not well defined t will be impossible to describe a good and sufficient format.
• To communicate environmental information it is necessary to have sufficient and relevant knowledge of environmental science.
• To design an effective and efficient information structure/format it is necessary to consult the area of computing science.

Aspects to consider
The four boxes denoted ‘Principles’ in figure 2 are the three interdisciplinary competence domains necessary to address when producing an environmental information format. It is necessary to consider:

• the economic life cycle of the information. For example, if it is likely that the format will be integrated with other information systems within the organisation this should§ be considered already while designing the format.
• the understanding (cognitive aspects) of each message produced using the information format, and also the understanding of the full information format. Users will have difficulties understanding messages unless they understand the format of the message.
• which aspect of the physical environmental that the environmental information addresses. What human activity or artefact is impacting which part of the physical environment and who is the personal or group who is concerned with that?
• how the information in the format shall be quality managed. How to enable review, all necessary documentation and how to ensure quality feedback and corrective actions to those who make mistakes.

The result from applying the strategy
The ‘Out’-side of figure 2 states that the result from the procedure is ‘Information structure for meaningful facts for industrial environmental management and intelligence’. This simply means that the information format makes perfect sense to the intended target audience, and that the resulting environmental information can be designed to suit any type of environmental requirements of or in an industrial organisation. The environmental information will clearly address what controllable aspect of or in the organisation that is addressed by the information, as well as which relevant aspect of the physical environment that is addressed by the information.

The working procedure
The working procedure of the strategy is presented as the three ‘Stages’ of figure 2. These work stages are:

1. Analyse concepts: At this stage all information items necessary to communicate with regards to both the target audience and environmental sciences should be identified and described.
   This means that one should define whether e.g. only emissions should be taken into account or if also resource use and products should be reported. It is also important to identify whether emissions data should be traced back to measurement equipment, and whether they should be characterised with regard to environmental impact. Each such identified information item needs to be identified, formatted, and related to each other information item. The result from this first stage is a list of all information items necessary to express the addressed information, together with notes and sketches necessary to understand how all the information items are related and what they mean.
2. Synthesize concept model: At this stage the information items found should be structured so that they most effectively communicates the intended message, and so that they efficiently allows both for data acquisition, integration with other information systems and for quality maintenance and review.
   This means that one should analyse the list produced from the first stage to identify any redundant information items (e.g. the information items ‘product’, ‘physical product’ and ‘service produced’ might be the same information item), to identify which information items that are needed to scribe a compound information item (such as ‘emission’ may be a compound of the information items ‘substance’, ‘quantity’, ‘unit’, ‘environmental media’, ’environmental sensitivity’, ‘geographical region’, etc.), to identify which information item is determines another information item (like ‘quantity’ may be determined by e.g. ‘mean value’, ‘max value’, ‘min value). ’
3. Establish ontology: At this stage the finished information format is established as a representative for the physical environment (the ontology). This means that it is intended that the users should consult the information to assess the state of the environment rather than observe the physical environment itself. This is achieved by involving all users responsible for acquiring, documenting and reviewing data to test, learn, criticize and discuss the format. Representatives for the target audience of information output such as reports should also be involved to understand the format and the information. If this stage is correctly performed the information format and the information will come to be established as facts about the environment, with acceptable precision and reliable credibility.

It should be understood that the three work stages may need to be traversed iteratively before the final format is eventually specified. To keep costs low, however, the efforts of stage 1 should be very high, and the tests after stage 2 should be thorough, so that stage 3 needs only to handle minor improvement details. If it is necessary to make large redesigns of the format at stage 3 it is likely that the work will cost too much since it is costly to attract the interest of the end users more than one time.

Experiences