Open Source ICT Tools Overcoming Barriers in EMS Implementation and Amplifying Company Environmental Awareness

Abstract

The investigation of authors’ team among more than hundred companies of the Czech Republic, which have implemented Environmental Management System (EMS) had identified ten main barriers, which obstruct the adoption of EMS principles and decrease environmental awareness of internal interested parties. The conceptual model of creating/overcoming barriers in EMS implementation and its continuous improvement has been developed. It is based on five basic objects and five interconnected business processes and it is suitable for ICT implementation. The appropriate set of ICT tools and the prototype of a web-based information system which supports creating/overcoming barriers in the process of EMS implementation have been developed by using mainly Java technologies (the Java Server Pages use Tomcat as a servlet container and Apache as a web server). Companies can easily communicate and generate tailor-made EMS documents/records/reports containing information specific to different target groups (internal or external interested parties) to increase their environmental awareness. The developed prototype is open source and it has been tested in cooperation with ten chosen Czech companies.