Suggestions for updating the organisation environmental footprint (OEF) method

The organisation environmental footprint (OEF) is a life cycle assessment (LCA) based method to quantify the environmental impacts of organisations: this includes companies, public administrative entities and other bodies. The OEF method builds on existing approaches and international standards. OEF information is produced for the overarching purpose of seeking to reduce the environmental impacts of organisations taking into account supply chain activities (from extraction of raw materials, through production and use, to final waste management). This purpose is achieved through the provision of detailed requirements for modelling the environmental impacts of the flows of materials and energy, and the emissions and waste streams associated with the product portfolio of an organisation, throughout its life cycle. The OEF is complementary to other assessments and instruments, such as site-specific environmental impact assessments or chemical risk assessments. At organisational level, the importance of the environmental impacts occurring in the supply chain is increasingly recognised. Standards and methods were created, such as the GHG protocol corporate standard and its sectoral guidance or global reporting initiative indicators. At EU level, the EMAS sectoral reference documents include guidance on indirect impacts, highlighting also the use of LCA-methods for evaluation of the respective product portfolio (PP). The rules provided in the OEF method enable to conduct OEF studies that are more reproducible, comparable and verifiable, compared to existing alternative approaches. However, comparability is an option only if the results are based on the same organisation environmental footprint sector rules (OEFSR) and if the performance is normalized against a reference system (e.g. yearly turnover with reference to the product portfolio). The development of OEFSRs complements and further specifies the requirements for OEF studies.