1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Information and Knowledge Systems
Of course, many resources are not yet available on the WWW. Several potentially useful sources
of tools and information are available to the public, but are not yet integrated into the growing
on-line community. For example:
Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI): An organization of companies
dedicated to fostering environmental excellence, worldwide, by promoting a worldwide
business ethnic for environmental management and sustainable development. The
growing number of companies (especially electronics industry companies) associated
with this program and the consensus of member companies could be of considerable
present and future value in attaining pollution prevention objectives. The success stories
of member companies in resolving pollution problems would be of great use.
EPA, Chemical Use Clusters Scoring Methodology: An EPA program for using algorithms
to “score” the combined effects of groups of chemical substances used in various
manufacturing processes. The purpose of the system is to emphasize the importance of
pollution prevention—particularly the use of safer substitutes. The system operates by
creating chemical “use clusters,” sets of competing chemicals and technologies for a
given use. When used in conjunction with other resources (e.g., known chemical use
patterns, toxicity information, “Existing Chemical Data,” and “New Chemicals Data”
etc.), a predictive model to classify desirable vs. undesirable chemicals with respect to
pollution prevention “intensity” can be derived.
Tellus Institute, P2/Finance Computer Program: P2/Finance is an innovative approach to
analyzing costs associated with pollution prevention, and is available for less than $100.
The software consists of a series of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for determining individual
company costs associated with pollution prevention activities. This computer
program appears to include all reasonable variables associated with the costs of pollution
prevention for a company. It is possible that multi-company users could combine similar
data for industry projections. Although the program itself is fairly rudimentary, it could
be considerably enhanced for use in the U.S. electronics industry. The approach is very
interesting and deserves in-depth evaluation.
At this point, however, there is no single consolidated source of environmental data about the
electronics industry. The wide distribution and heterogeneity of the data, along with
incompatible protocols, configurations, and platforms effectively impedes efficient access.
Effective data organization, access, retrieval, analysis, and management represents a prime
opportunity for industrial collaboration. The emergence of new information technologies,
including the increasingly ubiquitous global information network represented by the Internet and
other emerging networks, provide a framework for integrating information both within and
across enterprises. Furthermore, new information management tools supporting the navigation of
diverse networks and the automatic, intelligent acquisition of data from those networks have the
potential to enable a remarkable level of information access.
Accomplishing a well-integrated environmental data management system is not a simple task.
The many tools and approaches to data management that are appearing on the scene provide
some mechanisms to approach the challenge. But substantial research, development, integration,
and testing will be necessary.
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