DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1065/ehs2002.05.016 --- The identification of the most relevant environmental
aspects and their impact on the environment are important issues
of an environmental management system in a company.
Ideally, the method for identifying and evaluating the environmental
aspects should be based on a life-cycle perspective taking
into account all the environmental impacts a company can
control or influence. Although LCA is well proved on a product
level, it has shortcomings on a company level, which creates a
reluctance from the management side against their common use
in the course of environmental management.
The paper presents an assessment of the documentation of the
environmental situation in environmental reports of four companies
of the paper industry in Austria according to the EMAS
scheme and a feasible approach to calculate the burden of the
upstream processes out of the given data to show their importance
in relation to the site-generated burden. The central environmental
aspects could be identified for the single companies
and compared with life-cycle awareness as stated in the environmental
reports.
The environmental statements of the investigated company sites
were generally of good quality for the purpose mentioned, in
most cases data on resources, emissions to air and water, and on
waste were given for the last years. Only in few cases could data
on noise or transport of raw materials and products be found.
The importance of the process steps outside the production site
could be confirmed. Especially in some cases the external production
of chemical pulp was the most significant process in the
process chain, leading to a dominance in the impact classes of
acidification and nutrification. On the other hand, clear advantages
were visible when most of the process steps were combined
at one production site, offering a potential for synergies
and the distinct reduction of the total emissions.
Out of the investigated sites, general conclusions for the whole
paper industry were hardly possible, while the consideration of
the special case remains an unavoidable prerequisite. Similar
raw material characteristics seemed to be more important than
equivalent product quality for the comparison of the performance
of different sites. |
