Environmental Knowledge Management (EKM): A System Architect View

摘要

Due to the increasing number of voluntary and legislative initiatives, the role of the environmental professional is changing. Decision-making has shifted from a sequence of well-defined tasks relating to traditional EH&S management system goals, to making ongoing decisions within an evolving operational framework. Companies are choosing to incorporate pollution prevention. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Environmental Cost Accounting (ECA) principles into their operations. Managers need IT solutions that provide them with a medium for managing environmental knowledge. In order to implement an effective and efficient EH&S system, with the means of managing data quality effectively, these managers will require tools that go beyond a simple task-based solution. To promote efficient management of both data and knowledge and to encourage collaboration among employees, departments, facilities and stakeholders, managers should implement IT solutions that promote the standard entry, tagging and retrieval of information. By incorporating state-of-the-art advances in file sharing, HTML and XML, facilities can develop PC or web-based systems without requiring expensive servers or additional IT infrastructure and personnel. Standardization allows for benchmarking and the development of an integrated performance matrix. The integration of safety, environmental, social and economic performance indicators allows managers to link activities to knowledge. This creates a medium for managing a sound EH&S system and provides the means to perform LCA and ECA. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began the process of conforming to Executive Order 13148 by choosing to implement a software package that promotes the management and sharing of both environmental data and information. The EPA chose the assessment software package of the author's company of employment (GreenWare Environmental Systems Inc.) to roll out to over 35 facilities as a tool for each facility to complete a gap analysis in preparation for implementing an EMS in compliance with executive order 13148, section 401 (a) & (b). Section 401 (a) & (b) requires the completion of an agency wide assessment and the implementation of pilot EMSs by March 31, 2002. This technology, in combination with the use of standard assessment forms, has accelerated the EPA's EMS assessment process and has enabled the EPA to use a common matrix to track and benchmark progress across all its facilities.