User:GyVKatinka/sandbox

1.	What is eco-mapping?

The purpose of Eco-mapping is to provide small companies and organisations with a free, visual, simple and practical tool to analyze and manage their environmental attitude and aspects. It involves using a map of an organization’s site, e.g. a shop floor, a workshop, an office, a community centre to help create an easy understanding of an organization’s current environmental situation. Eco-mapping is not a goal in itself, but a process framework or visual adult learning tool that helps companies and organisations define and prioritize environmental problems and issues to act upon.

Why a map?

Because 80 % of environmental issues can be linked to a spot or a place or a location. Oil spills do not happen in bookkeeping systems but behind a machine. That's why Eco-mapping is based on GIS logic and very easy to understand by workers. The key point is that the method requires staff involvement and is using the collective intelligence of workers to identify the environmental hotspots where improvements could be done.

Once completed, Eco-mapping can serve as the basis for a wider environmental management system. The first step involves drawing a map of an organisation’s site, as seen from above. This includes access areas, roads and the immediate surrounding environment but also virtual frontiers like the context, the market space, the supply chain, etc. This is called an 'urban situation or global map'. Like looking from above with the Google Earth or Map applications. Global situation places the organization’s site in its wider spatial and societal context. This map triggers off thinking about product design, compliance with regulations and market requirements, supply chain management, SDG and the values defended by the organization. The second step is to use a simple, recognizable, scaled map of the site to show the interior spaces. This map is used six times. Like zooming in into the site and shop floor. An organisation’s environmental situation and problems are then highlighted, evaluated and pointed out where they occur. For example:


 * Waste: looks at waste streams and how to address circularity, recycling and avoidance
 * Water: looks at the organisation’s consumption of water and discharge of wastewater.
 * Soil storage and chemicals: looks at the storage of flammable, dangerous or hazardous products in relation to groundwater.
 * Air, odours, noise, dust: looks at all the points of emissions and the functioning of equipment inside an organisation.
 * Energy: looks at consumption of energy and its impacts.
 * Risks: identifies risks of accidents, pollution and health issues

The Ecomapping process is completed with a first attempt to get insights into the material and energy flows of the organization and perception measurement of how staff feel about environmental stewardship. Ecomapping is a starter kit to introduce environmental thinking and awareness into the shop floor and is a very formal visual intuitive set of tools. However, it can not be certified as an environmental management system standard like ISO 14001, EU EMAS regulation, etc. but can complement them and help implement them. The inventor of the Eco-mapping method developed, therefore, the add-on module in 2003, the ' EMAS Easy 'concept which became very popular and has been translated and distributed by the EU in all member states.