EnviroInfo 2011: Innovations in Sharing Environmental Observations and Information CEMIS Software available on the German Market Nabil Allam, Prof. Dr. Horst Junker 1 Abstract Since 20 years there have been research projects on corporate environmental management information systems (CEMIS). Based on these projects nowadays we have different EMIS on the market that provide different approaches solving environmental issues in companies. Even so such information systems are rarely used. Up to now, there is no empirical study to investigate the environmental standard software market about an impression of offered software systems and their functionalities, which can be used by companies. Within the project IT for Green we conduct such a study and start investigations to describe the actual standard software systems that are available on the German market. The project will present a simplified classification of corporate environmental management information systems (CEMIS) products on the German software market which makes the information accessibility for interested companies. This should help to remove barriers that impede the use of these systems. 1. Introduction There are a lot of CEMIS that handle environmental issues on the German market. Even so, such systems are rarely used in companies [Perl, E., Vorbach 2005]. The market penetration of CEMIS is comparably small. Approximately 70% of the industry is using programs for spreadsheet analysis only such as MS Excel to handle environmental information. Till now, most of the companies doesn't have an access to information about the use of CEMIS [Perl 2006]. Removing these barriers helps avoid this suboptimal situation. The CEMIS on the market provide different approaches for solving environmental protection in companies. Otherwise there are a lot of scientific research and discussions about CEMIS with the result of many suggestions, prototypes and proposals for CEMIS developments within the last two decades. The gap between scientific approaches and practical realizations in companies is huge and seems still raising. For example, nowadays some scientists are thinking about a CEMIS 2.0 even though there is no realization of a production integrated CEMIS in companies, which seemed to be required by the early beginning of the scientific CEMIS discussion twenty years ago. The investigation of the range of CEMIS should help to downsize the gap between the scientific researches/discussion and the practical realizations. On the other hand it supports the penetration of these software systems in companies to advance the handling of environmental issues. Easy access to information can remove the barriers of rarely using CEMIS in companies. Therefore it is important to make information about CEMIS and their use accessible for the industry. 2. Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems Today, environmental issues are dealing on corporate management level. This is based on the late 1980s where companies were exposed to increasing pressure from national and international politics to internalize their impacts on the environment. The emergence of systems for voluntary eco-management, as e.g. 1 IMBC GmbH, Ostendstraße 25, 12459 Berlin, Germany, info@imbc.de
EMAS or ISO 14001, expands the environmental efforts of the companies. A special category of information systems (IS) was created known as Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems (CEMIS) originated from the pressure to comply with environmental goals [Gómez, Teuteberg (2010), S. xxi ]. Such systems were originally developed to meet a limited number of external environmental requirements. Nowadays, a large variety of highly specific, heterogeneous solutions for different environmental issues exist in the market. Even so, no truly integrative approach to the topic has been taken to date. In almost all cases where CEMIS contribute to the solution of large-scale problems, this happens on an operational level only. The introduction of environmental management can be financially beneficial (e.g. higher efficiency, waste avoidance, reduction of resource consumption or winning new customer groups). However, it is questionable whether the scientific discussion/definition and the available CEMIS on the market are able to meet the complex environmental goals. Thus, to get an overview of the CEMIS market in Germany, it is advisable to understand what CEMISs are, as defined from a scientific point of view. 2.1 CEMIS definitions There are different traditional definitions of CEMIS in scientific discussion. The most used definitions are (sorted by date): 1. CEMIS are a summary of all information systems, which serve the corporate environmental management [Kramer 1996, S. 110]. 2. CEMIS serve the IT support of corporate environmental protection [Hilty 1997, S. 84]. 3. CEMIS are organizational-technical systems for systematically obtaining, processing and making environmental relevant information available in companies [Rautenstrauch 1999, S. 11]. 4. [A CEMIS] is a corporate instrument for anticipatory, [ ], strategic and innovative acting, which detects environmental opportunities and risks. Such a system is not only for documentation, it is also for planing, monitoring and controlling [Schulz et al 2001, S. 225]. The third definition from Rautenstrauch is most used in the scientific community. Based on this, there is also a definition from Marx Gomez [Gomez 2009] that provide a roughly classification of CEMISs from the operative point of view (Figure 1). All of the presented definition are not longer state of the art. They don't reflect the developments of information management and ignore the previous changes and experiences of business informatics. The traditional definition have an somehow operative point of view and don't recognize the holistic approach of information management. A strategic orientation is missing. Figure 1 CEMIS Classification [Gomez 2009]
Independent of the mentioned definitions, considering the increasing public debate about a sustainable society the expectations of industry are also growing. Instead of pure legal compliance, there is a growing demand on companies to reduce actively there environmental impacts. Companies shall work on an active environment protection. This does not only involve avoiding unnecessary waste, improving risk assessment or reducing resource consumption, but also inclusion environmentalism in companies' long-term strategic goals of being effectively beneficial. This means integrating the environmental protection in companies' decision-making and improving the general efficiency of production processes in terms of production-integrated environmental protection. To achieve this, a more complex CEMIS is needed than programs for spreadsheet analysis or a simple application that manages appointments. It is questionable whether individual CEMIS that exist only at operational level are able to meet the mentioned complex environmental goals. Additionally, such isolated solutions usually come with all the problems that business informatics experts try to prevent by constructing integrated systems. There are e.g. data redundancies, heterogeneous user interfaces, inefficient communication etc. Considering this fact, it is even more surprising that the mistakes of business informatics of the early 1960 and 1970s are still being repeated, leaving companies with the high costs of integrating separate, outdated legacy systems. 2.2 Approach for a new CEMIS Definition One of the problems of the CEMIS definitions is their arbitrarily. So you can say an Excel sheet or an environmental management manual [Perl 2006, S. 30] is a CEMIS. Comparatively with other computer sciences sector, it is unique to describe environmental management manual as an information system. Nobody would describe an Excel sheet as a supply chain management system in a scientific publication. Only CEMISs are such information systems. A concentration of essential requirements for a CEMIS reduces the complexity of a definition of such a system. CEMIS are information systems, which serve and support the ideas of sustainable development within an enterprise, on the strategic point of view. On a tactical point of view CEMIS are information systems, which deal in a holistic manner with: material/energy efficiency emissions/waste minimization/reduction disposal stakeholder support legal compliance CEMIS are corporate organizational-technical systems for forward-looking, strategic, innovative and operative acting, which helps to detect environmental opportunities and risks. It allows the systematically planing, processing, monitoring, documentation of (relevant) environmental information and makes this available for external and internal stakeholder. Such a system uses a centralized data base, provides a user authentication and user verification approach. It is not a program for spreadsheet analysis. Basically a CEMIS is a company information system (CIS). The definition of such a system in the Gabler encyclopedia achieve the presented requirements mainly. Based on it: 1. A CEMIS is a collective term for environmental management software systems which allows the detecting environmental opportunities and risks. 2. It is a general approach for computer based planing, processing, monitoring, analysis, documentation of (relevant) environmental information and makes it available for external and internal stakeholder (to the different target groups). 3. The components of a modern CEMIS are:
a. a central data base to avoid issues of data consistency and data actuality and defined security approach for data privacy and data integrity, b. with methods (algorithms) and c. and a graphical user interface to handle the system with a user authentication and authorization. 3. Methodology and Basics of the Research Considering the increasing number of possibilities to search for software products (in search engines, software catalogs, technical magazines and papers), it is essential to use a systematic methodology for this investigation. Therefore we adapted an analytical framework to analyze literature for our research from Fettke 2006 (S. 260). Instead of reviewing literature we use it to review software products. Such a framework describes the structure of a set of objects (papers, software etc) within a predefined domain and the relationships among those objects. It helps to clearly delineate the domain, organize knowledge transparent, highlight opportunities and organize the research procedure comprehensible. The five-step procedure we execute (Figure 2). Figure 2 Framework procedure 3.1 Definition and Scope This step contains the topic conceptualization and the definition of the investigation scope: The CEMIS discussion in the previous chapters covers the scope of the research and marks out the topic. Additionally, we limit the investigation of standard software products on the German market. The investigated tools should be industry-independent. 3.2 Determination of Search Tools and Used Terms The search was focused on the Internet. You can essentially assume that a software provider use the internet for marketing. Used search tools are: German chamber of commerce and industry (CCI): It provides a data base with software products and services for the industry. Software-marktplatz.de: It is a supply of isi Medien GmbH ISIS Medien. It provides a software products catalog. Softguide.de: It is a software catalog.
Asking software provider about known competitors. Different search engines: google, bing, yahoo, altavista. The used search keys were concentrated on known legal compliance issues in companies and scientific discussion. All following criteria was combined with the term software and system (in German): Material Flow Management Emission Emission avoiding Recycling: Related to this term, we get a lot of software product for waste management enterprise. This type of software is not a standard software product and can't be recognized in the investigation. Electronic Scrap Eco Eco Design Waste Management Waste Avoiding Waste Reduction Environment Environment Management Hazardous Material Legal Compliance ISO 14001 DIN 16001 DIN 15232 EMAS Material Efficiency Energy 3.3 Software Products Search Building on the previous steps the search for relevant software products were conducted as showed in Figure 3. Figure 3 Search Process After identification of the search tools the pre-defined key words were applied to the search engines of each one. The results were collected in a sheet (name and URL). In the 4th step the websites of each product was visited and software description was analyzed. The functionalities of detected software (CEMIS) were in the spotlight of this investigation.
4. Analysis At the beginning of our investigation, we made two assumptions: 1. The most CEMIS is developed from companies which provide consulting services in environmental issues for companies. 2. We suppose also, that most of the software products are handling problems of legal compliance in the industry. An Entity Relationship Diagram was build which allows describing a software product. It makes saving metadata of each software (technical characteristics, software provider etc.) possible and it describes the functionalities of each product. It simplifies building ratios. During this step software data sheets and descriptions were analyzed by means of a systematic review of the functionalities that were presented on the websites of the software provider. For this purpose the morphological box from Marx Gómez (see chapter CEMIS definitions ) was simplified and adapted. Four classes were built to structure the results: Legal Compliance [Allam 2008]: e.g. managing hazardous material or employment protection and industry safety Management / Controlling: e.g. creating ratios for more transparency about the environmental situation of a company Material Flow Management: building and calculation material flow networks Environmental Software (not CEMIS): e.g. energy management for buildings 4.1 Outcome and Classification One of the objectives of this investigation is to make information about CEMIS and their use accessible for the industry. Therefore, we are trying to structure the classification as simple as possible. Figure 4 Provider Distribution The first supposition (most companies provide consulting services) is disproved.
Until now, we found 63 CEMIS providers in Germany. 76.19% of them are providing only software. All others are providing a composition of software and environmental consulting (e.g. ISO 14001 certification preparing etc.). The outcome of this is: the market needs such software tools, the software is professionally developed but you can't see any relation between origin of CEMIS and consulting in environmental issues. Based on the history of CEMIS origins, you can clearly see, that the need of such software tools was not initiated by consulting companies. The investigated 63 companies provide today 156 software products today. Based on the described functionalities on their webpages and data sheets, they are distributed to mentioned classes: Figure 5 CEMIS Distribution to the Four Classes Figure 5 approve the second supposition (most of the CEMIS are to manage legal compliance issues). This verifies the frequently-used statement, that the most companies are handling environmental issues in reactive measures [Allam et.al. 2010, S. (198)]. 5. Summary and Outlook The software market in Germany provides a variety of functionalities. But we didn't found software tools which make an integration in a heterogeneous software environment possible. All the software products that are investigated appear very simple. The fewest are able to be used in a web-environment (have an access by a web browser). Many of them are software applications that have to be installed on a personal computer to be employed. Web services or similar technologies don't seems to be used in this domain. Only one of the 153 products provides such services.
The collected data will be prepared and provided on a webpage 2, where interested companies have the possibility to search a software product based on functionality requirements. This allows a problem-oriented search for a software product. It will not increase the proactive environmental efforts in the companies, but it helps to reduce the environmental issues in the industry and shows new ways to handle / improve environmental situation in an organization. Preparing a form to interview CEMIS providers to get more information about the background of the software and their application. For example on till now, no software provider gives information about technical aspects of the software systems. Also, it was not possible to get clear proposition about offered interfaces to other systems (e.g. ERP systems). The project hast just started to investigate the corporate environmental management information systems in Germany. Next step will be refining and improving the results so the classification can be upgraded. The project is not about recognizing non functional requirements of the considered software products. This fact is very important to apply software products in companies. This must be integrated in next project phase. Another approach for the investigation is to survey companies that are already using CEMIS. Here is to ask: which software tools are used, which software tools are known at the market, which are the decisive reasons for implementing those systems, which demands were made for a CEMIS product. This will help to get new considerations of those software systems and give companies an understanding of CEMIS. 6. Bibliography Allam et.al. 2010: Allam, N.; Junker, H.; Marx Gómez, J. collaborative corporate environmental management information systems. Proceedings: 24th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection (Cologne / Bonn) Germany. 197-204; Shaker Verlag Allam N 2008: Industrial Environmental Information Systems to solve Environmental Issues, Proceedings of ICTTA'08 IEEE, Damascus, Syria (2008) Fettke P 2006: State-of-the-Art des State-of-the-Art Eine Untersuchung der Forschungsmethode Review innerhalb der Wirtschaftsinformatik. Wirtschaftsinformatik 48(2006)4, S. 257-266 Gabler 2010: http://wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de/definition/betriebliches-informationssystem.html; from 04.01.2010 Gomez 2009: http://www.oldenbourg.de:8080/wi- enzyklopaedie/lexikon/informationssysteme/sektorspezifische- Anwendungssysteme/Umweltinformationssystem%2C-betriebliches/index.html/?searchterm=buis Gomez J, Teuteberg F 2005: Towards the Next Generation of Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems: What is there and what is Missing? In: Corporate Environmental Management Information Systems; Frank Teuteberg; Jorge Marx Gomez; IGI Global 2010 2 See www.it4green.de
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