OEPI: A Network Solution for Managing Organizations’ Environmental Performance Indicators

Abstract

Companies use Environmental Performance Indicators (EPIs) such as CO2 emissions and water consumption to monitor and reduce the impact of their operations and products on the environment. Various IT solutions are used today to manage these EPIs, however, these suffer from three shortcomings. They do not sufficiently address the business user, they barely touch upon the inter-organizational aspects, and they typically suffer from data availability and quality issues. Addressing these challenges is the aim of the research project OEPI whose approach and results are the subject of this paper. OEPI proposes a new solution aimed at the business user, designed for extensibility, and with particular mechanisms that foster inter-organizational cooperation and high-quality data incorporation. The goal is to provide a many-to-many business network that enables users to easily provision, share, and manage their EPIs.