Environmental Management Information Systems : How does IT aid the implementation and processes of EMSs?

Abstract: Organisational impacts on the environment have been a primary topic of discussion for several decades, prompting a need for organisations to eva- luate and manage their environmental impacts. Environmental management systems have since been adopted by companies worldwide for numerous reasons and benefits. In more recent years, IT solutions have been designed to meet the various needs of environmental management but with little at- tention drawn to a standardised approach.   The following thesis aims to determine the use of IT adopted by organisa- tions to support their environmental management systems (EMSs). In doing so, the importance of EMSs, IT solutions to support EMSs and the benefits of IT for such systems are addressed. A small number of informative inter- views were conducted with EMS consultants and numerous representatives of ISO 14001 certified companies to establish what IT solutions are availa- ble to support EMSs and identify the differences between such solutions.   This thesis demonstrates that IT solutions adopted by organisations to sup- port their EMSs differ in complexity and depend upon the expected results of the EMS itself. Depending on how integral the EMS is to the organisa- tion’s business processes, IT can benefit the EMS and ultimately the organi- sation in a number of ways. In conclusion, EMSs can be implemented with little technical aid. However, IT is a communicative tool adopted to review, manage and monitor environmental data and enables easier handling of en- vironmental data enhancing the performance of the EMS.