Gil Friend¹

(1) Natural Logic, Inc, Highlands Ranch, CO

ABSTRACT: Metabolism-Based Sustainability Metrics

JM Juran, one of the founders of Total Quality Management, noted in 1948 that "To be in a state of Self-Control, a person must know what is expected of them; know how well they are doing; know what resources/options are available to improve. If any of these three are lacking, Juran wrote, "a person can't be held responsible." Yet all too often enterprises hold people without equipping them to be responsible.

Integration of sustainability concepts into business decision making depends on availability of timely, accurate, meaningful and relevant information to business decision makers at all levels of the enterprise, from executives to operating employees.

Effective tools must turn data overload into actionable information, putting data into context, as trend, ratio, and pattern-for example with such key productivity ratios as profit per ton of emissions or Product/Non-Product Ratios.

This session will present an approach to "metabolism-based" information systems that enable users to develop meaningful sustainability metrics from often neglected legacy data, and use them in a way that links environmental performance and business performance, in order to most effectively improve both.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90906©2001 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado