Handling and reporting environmental information

This aim of this strategy is to describe how to efficiently handle and report environmental information based on work within the forest industry and Industrial Environmental Informatics at Chalmers University of Technology.

As society increases its focus on environmental issues, demand for environmental data from industry has also increased. The recent introduction of product related environmental information has placed new demands on industry to handle environmental data. Data needs to be easily used for different applications to respond to various stakeholder needs. Therefore, the possibility to reuse and verify data is essential to enable efficient yet credible data management.

This strategy describes how to efficiently handle and report environmental information for production systems, e.g. a production site, a part thereof, or parts of a product's life cycle. Applications for which environmental data are needed are e.g. reporting to authorities, EMAS statements, process development, emission trading (all using data representing the production site or parts thereof), environmental product declarations and labeling, LCAs, customers' supplier evaluations (all typically using data representing specific products). Emission trading through the European Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) is the European way to ensure the commitments ratified in the Kyoto protocol. Click here for more information on ETS and the Kyoto Protocol.

Environmental coordinators, persons working with environmental support and decision makers in companies can benefit from using this strategy, provided that it is supported by the management of the company.

This strategy is based on an internationally standardized format for documentation of environmental data (ISO/TS 14048 data documentation format) and a scientifically proven procedure (called PHASETS, PHASEs in the design of a Technical System) for establishing calculation models for production systems. More information on the ISO/TS 14048 is available in the report  “Introduction and guide to LCA data documentation using the CPM data documentation criteria and ISO/TS 14048 Data documentation format” and at: www.imi.chalmers.se.

The results of this strategy can be implemented in the organization's management system, e.g. ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The working procedure of the strategy is presented below. The strategy is fully described in Methodology for handling forest industry environmental data (see Method report and Manual)

Working procedure