Environmental accounting and management: a knowledge-based systems approach

A knowledge-based system designed to facilitate the implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) in the electronics industry is introduced, together with a model for a decision support system to work in the context of an EMS. The expertise required to carry out an assessment of the environmental impacts of products and processes is contained in the knowledge base. Such an assessment is required in order to set a relevant environmental improvement programme as part of the EMS. The decision support tool uses environmental accounting techniques in combination with defined environmental improvement targets to assist with process choice and product design