What Should Be Measured and Why? [1,3]

We all agree that measurement of environmental performance is an essential part of environmental management. Measurement helps us evaluate the effectiveness of our environmental management systems, track our progress toward stated goals, compare our performance to others, improve the quality of our decisions, understand and prioritize our needs, substantiate our accomplishments, support and direct our strategic goals and objectives.

What we measure is a reflection of the goals we wish to achieve. For example, if our objective is to increase efficiency on the production floor, we might use a simple material balance to evaluate inputs and outputs to and from one particular unit process or operation. However, we might choose to broaden our scope to evaluate the efficiency of overall material use at the facility level, or within the organization. We might expand our view even further to consider how are material use policies and practices affect our host community, or the natural ecosystem in which we exist. Each of these choices reflects a different end purpose.

For production supervisors and business managers, perhaps the principal goal is efficiency and healthy profit/loss ratios. Perhaps environmental managers can support them in achieving such goals at a process level while at the same time enhancing the organization’s environmental performance. However, the principal goal of the environmental manager should be more aligned with improving environmental performance outcomes at a broader scale.

So, the questions we might want to ask and answer here include:

– What different levels of environmental performance measurement goals exist or should exist?

– How does the environmental manager help the organization recognize the importance and applicability of these different levels of measurement?

– How should environmental performance considerations mesh with corporate performance considerations?

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