USE OF INDICATORS ON ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PLANS

Abstract

In broader terms, Environmental Monitoring plans - EMP have basic items, these are: (1) Structure, (2) objectives, (3) plan requirements, (4) data and information archive, (5) sample collection and data acquisition, (6) data treatment and discussion and (7) data and plan evaluation. This work will discuss some critical aspects, such as objective definition, requirements and performance indicators to a company management, and not only to the EMP executors. The way how the data collection and the information quality are affected by those items will be presented as well. Follow up and improvement tools such as environmental performance indicators, will be presented related or not to field information. Easy routines to establish EMP, based on Plan-Do-Check-Act approach, that are applicable to small and medium size companies will be presented to achieve environmental protection, cleaner production and sustainability.

Index Terms - environmental monitoring plans, performance evaluation, selecting indicators.