TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental Indicators for Business

T2 - A Review of the Literature and Standardisation Methods

AU - Olsthoorn, Xander

AU - Tyteca, Daniel

AU - Wehrmeyer, Walter

AU - Wagner, Marcus

N1 - Literaturverz. S. 462 - 463

PY - 2001/10

Y1 - 2001/10

N2 - This paper reviews the existing literature on environmental performance indicators as they relate to private sector organisations, followed by a basic classification of ways in which environmental data are being standardised for use in indicators. It was found that the majority of standardisation schemes for environmental information fall into one of five categories, namely standardised using economic criteria, physical impact categories (such as global warming potential), linear programming methods (such as productive efficiency), economic valuation methods or as part of business management review processes. The paper concludes that environmental data, once normalised, should be used in a diversity of indicators that are tailored to the information needs of the data users and that, as long as normalisation of data is kept separate from aggregation and standardisation, many different indicators can be developed based on a comparatively small dataset.

AB - This paper reviews the existing literature on environmental performance indicators as they relate to private sector organisations, followed by a basic classification of ways in which environmental data are being standardised for use in indicators. It was found that the majority of standardisation schemes for environmental information fall into one of five categories, namely standardised using economic criteria, physical impact categories (such as global warming potential), linear programming methods (such as productive efficiency), economic valuation methods or as part of business management review processes. The paper concludes that environmental data, once normalised, should be used in a diversity of indicators that are tailored to the information needs of the data users and that, as long as normalisation of data is kept separate from aggregation and standardisation, many different indicators can be developed based on a comparatively small dataset.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - Aggregation

KW - EMAS

KW - Environmental performance

KW - ISO

KW - Management indicators

KW - Productive efficiency

KW - Standardisation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0035480546&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/S0959-6526(01)00005-1

DO - 10.1016/S0959-6526(01)00005-1

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 9

SP - 453

EP - 463

JO - Journal of Cleaner Production

JF - Journal of Cleaner Production

SN - 0959-6526

IS - 5

ER -