EPE According to ISO 14031: Concept, Experience, and Revision Issues

Abstract

ISO 14031 on “Environmental Performance Evaluation” (EPE) was released in late 1999 and published in Germany by DIN in early 2000 also as DIN EN ISO 14031 in two languages (German and English) as the last standard of the original ISO-14000 family started in 1993 as a follow-up to the UN world summit in Rio 1992. But even before 1999/2000 users had already begun gathering experience with this new instrument for measuring performance, which had proven the standard to be an effective instrument especially for small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) both for continual improvement processes in operative environmental protection and as a basis for lean reporting to external stakeholders. Once again it was the ecological pioneer KUNERT AG which became the first mover to practically apply and test the standard with a view to improving it in view of the first revision process of the standard planned for 2004.