Practical Aspects of Pre-evaluation of Eco-efficiency of  

Environmental Technologies

Włodzimierz A. Sokół
(Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarkow 1, 40-166 Katowice, Poland)

Abstract: The development of each company operating in the global market and its competitiveness depends on the effectiveness in achieving strategic and operational objectives that are closely related to the use of eco-efficient technologies. In these times of increasing social awareness of protection against industrial pollution, decisions on the choice of technology should subside in the appropriate stage of the company environmental management system. Decisions regarding the selection of eco-efficient technologies follow from the identification of significant environmental aspects of the company’s activities and their impact on the environment. On this basis, long- and short-term objectives and specific projects are determined. These projects are implemented by using environmentaly friendly technologies. There are hundreds technology offers from different countries on the market. For that reason, potential buyers will expect recommendations relating to eco-efficiency technology offers being submitted by suppliers, in order to know which one is better than another without extended and very expensive analysis. For that reason, a simplified pre-evaluation approach was developed for the assessment of the eco-efficiency of a given technology, often based on very limited numerical data. The methodology was tested on more than four hundred offers of environmental technologies submitted by suppliers from seven Baltic Sea Region countries. The results of pre-evaluation of eco-efficiency enhancement depend on the efficient use of resources, energy and reduction of emissions into the air, water and soil are presented on example of searching for clean coal technology offers for heating of buildings.

Key words: eco-efficiency; environmental technology; risk management; environmental management

JEL codes: L21, O14, Q51