Web Portals: A Tool for Environmental Management

Abstract

Ecoradar (www.ecoradar.org / www.oekoradar.de) is the name of an innovative Internet portal that sets out to use the simplest and most persuasive means to motivate others to implement sustainable management in those enterprises that have so far taken little or no interest in this subject. This major project, in which over 80 German enterprises and institutions participated, is part of the new funding focus “Integrated Environmental Protection – Instruments for Sustainable Business Management” set by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The primary task of the portal is the creation of an environmental management community. The purpose of this article is to show the structure and elements of the ecoradar community. Both the creation of a “culture of trust” among the participating enterprises and the strategy of successful integration of the joint project partners are of specific interest. In the following, the content models are presented and the article examines the ability of the ecoradar community to develop, share and use the available knowledge by using the tools of knowledge management. Finally, the authors describe the technology used to create the portal.