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FOUR KEY ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ILLUSTRATED FOR A
COMPUTER MANUFACTURER
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Sources: Daryl Ditz and Janet Ranganathan, Measuring Up: Toward a
Common Framework for Tracking Corporate Environmental Performance [Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, July 1997]; John H. Cushman, Jr., "E.P.A. Is
Pressing Plan To Publicize Pollution Data," New York Times, August 12, 1997, A1.
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How do you track the environmental performance of corporations? How do you encourage cleaner
production processes?
The World Resources Institute suggests establishing four environmental performance indicators that can be
easily tracked over time and presented at the facility level:
- materials use or inputs;
- energy consumption, including both the quantity and type;
- nonproduct output (waste); and
- pollutant releases, including both toxic releases and greenhouse gases.
At the state and national levels, various efforts have been made to give the public and the regulators a
better sense of whether environmental performance goals are being met. For example, the State of Texas requires all major manufacturing companies to prepare
a waste minimization and source reduction plan, the executive summary of which is available to the public. In addition, each of these same companies must
produce an annual report that tracks its progress toward meeting these goals.
At the national level, the EPA is building on the success of the Toxics Release Inventory Program. First, this program
has been expanded to include more chemicals and more types of industries. Secondly, the EPA has begun a new
program called the Sector Facility Indexing Project. This program combines TRI data with data from other programs
like the RCRA, the Clean Air Act, pollution permit violations, and even the demographics of the community surrounding
individual facilities in the oil producing, steel, metals, auto, and paper industries. In addition, the data are being
"weighted" based upon the danger of the chemicals emitted or produced. This will help the public have a better
understanding not only of how much waste and emissions are being increased or reduced but of the qualitative aspects of that data.
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