OEPI

Sustainability and the protection of the environment become increasingly important topics in society as well as in business. In this regard, one of the best known political agreements is the Kyoto protocol, which aims at decreasing the emission of greenhouse gases. Beside this emission to air, emissions to land and water as well as the use of resources are themes of equal importance. The European community addresses the new challenges through a number of environmental awareness programs. At the same time, most enterprises seem to adapt their reporting little to these changes. It is assumed that 80% of companies are likely to have 5 or less Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) for their environmental reporting. But the effects of emissions and resource consumption force direct measures from the industry that will reshape the economy in the next decades. As a result, the ecological impact of produced goods has to be gauged and this ecological index has to be standardized or made exchangeable so that consumers are able to directly compare similar products from different producers.