The ECET Assessment Framework for Environmental Performance Indicators

Due to accelerated adverse changes in the environment, much legislation has been passed on the topic of sustainability. This, coupled with improved social awareness, has challenged companies to enhance their business strategies with respect to improvements in sustainability. A clear and comprehensive communication of a company’s sustainability efforts has become an increasingly important factor for success in today’s markets. Performance indicators, aligned with sustainable topics and a company’s ability for sustainability reporting, are a way to face this challenge. This paper elaborates on the increased demand of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for Environmental Management Information Systems (EMISs) and adequately assesses the applications of relevant regulations to successfully curtail and reduce the enterprise‘s impact on the environment while running its business. In this paper we present a new assessment framework model for EMIS adoption and key success factors for using it in an SME. In order to build the model, an exploratory study of 272 companies was conducted to identify the requirements, and it led to a conceptual model based on four identified success constructs and named the ECET Assessment Framework. The focus of this paper is to explain the confirmative approach used to validate this conceptual model. The ECET framework was evaluated by 138 companies by means of a Structural Equation Model (SEM). This SEM provides the validity of the success constructs and gives additional insight into their interdependencies. The evaluated success model helps companies to position themselves based on their EMIS determining factors and to gain knowledge about what needs to be improved in order to achieve a successful implementation of an EMIS.