It’s time to get serious about carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) now that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified them as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. More importantly, they have established mandatory annual GHG reporting requirements beginning January 2010, with the first reports to be submitted in March 2011.

To properly and proactively comply with these new reporting requirements, progressive companies have begun implementing software controls and related processes to accurately gather, analyze and report on needed data. Critical to these controls is the ability to roll up data to the enterprise level and ensure its accuracy with secure, verifiable audit trails.

Dakota Metrics provides these essential capabilities and simplifies data collection with the use of smart forms. For increased efficiencies, Metrics seamlessly works with all products in the Dakota ProActivity suite to display needed EHS data in an easy-to-read dashboard format to facilitate accurate sustainability reporting.

Metrics also allows the creation of custom dashboards for analyzing the results of environmental initiatives. Not only is this data essential for sustainability reporting, it provides the insight needed to transition activities from process and operational improvements to strategic, forward-looking compliance.

Metrics that can be captured and analyzed on a custom dashboard may pertain to:

• Reducing and offsetting carbon and GHG emissions
• Lower, more efficient energy consumption
• Reducing and recycling solid and liquid wastes
• Eliminating or reducing the use of chemicals linked to environmental and human safety