2015 Volume 11 Issue 2 Pages 86-91
Purpose. The Organisation Environmental Footprint（OEF）of the European Commission（EC）measures the environmental impacts of organisations based on a life cycle approach. It aims to ensure no important issues are overlooked both throughout the value chain and regarding relevant environmental areas. It was developed responding to policy requests to establish a common methodological approach to measure and communicate the environmental performance of organisations.
Methods. The OEF provides the possibility for a more “top down” approach versus a product-centered approach like the Product Environmental Footprint（PEF）, making data collection easier and requiring less effort. The ongoing three-year pilot phase ending in December 2016 is exploring the development of more specific Organisation Environmental Footprint Sector Rules（OEFSRs）.
Results and discussion. The Organisation Environmental Footprint Sector Rules（OEFSRs）will lead to increased specificity, relevance and robustness of the assessments while at the same time striving for simplifications versus the OEF general guide. Simplification can be achieved e.g. by pre-identifying relevant life cycle stages and environmental impacts on a sector specific level, focusing the work on what matters most.
Conclusions. There is far less experience available on organisation-level assessment of life cycle environmental performance compared to the assessment of products. The pilot is an occasion to test this novel approach. This also and especially applies to the question if and how far comparability between organisations within the same sector providing similar products and services can be achieved. Considerations on whether to take any policy action is expected to take place starting from 2017 based on the results of the pilot phase, its peer review and evaluation.
