EnvStud 781 – Key challenges for corporate environmental performance

Content:

This course, aimed at both individual companies and organisations representing company stakeholders and policy-makers, summarises current trends, problems and developments in the areas of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs); Environmental Reporting; Environmental Performance Ranking; and their interconnections as a contribution to enhancing the eco-efficiency of companies.

There are interrelationships between the various environmental management tools that need to be acknowledged in strategic environmental management, even though they have all not yet been clearly identified. In many cases companies have launched projects involving environmental management systems, environmental auditing, environmental accounting, lifecycle assessment, environmental reporting, development of environmental performance indicators (EPIs) and environmental benchmarking etc., without reflecting on the interrelationships between them and the potential synergetic or counteractive effects they could have on each other.

Course Lecturer: Gerhard Berchtold, PhD

ECTS credits: 6

Coursebook:

Continuity, Credibility and Comparability

Key challenges for corporate environmental performance

measurement and communication

by

Åsa Skillius and Ulrika Wennberg

The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at

LundUniversity

a report commissioned by the European Environment Agency

February 1998

This report, aimed at both individual companies and organisations representing company stakeholders and policy-makers, summarises current trends, problems and developments in the areas of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs); Environmental Reporting; Environmental Performance Ranking; and their interconnections as a contribution to enhancing the eco-efficiency of companies. There is also a supplementary report focusing on environmental reporting and small-and medium-sized-enterprises (SMEs).

Relationships between environmental management tools

There are interrelationships between the various environmental management tools that need to be acknowledged in strategic environmental management, even though they have all not yet been clearly identified. In many cases companies have launched projects involving environmental management systems, environmental auditing, environmental accounting, lifecycle assessment, environmental reporting, development of environmental performance indicators (EPIs) and environmental benchmarking etc., without reflecting on the interrelationships between them and the potential synergetic or counteractive effects they could have on each other.