Join an e-mail alert list and receive the latest JIE table of contents and news, visit: http://mitpress.mit.edu/jie/e-mail To subscribe to JIE, visit: http://mitpress.mit.edu/jie_subscribe This article is provided courtesy of The MIT Press. RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Improving Environmental Performance Assessment A Comparative Analysis of Weighting Methods Used to Evaluate Chemical Release Inventories Michael W. Toffel and Julian D. Marshall Keywords Summary emissions environmental health Managers, management scholars, regulators, nonprofit orga- environmental management nizations, and the media are increasingly using emissions in- indicators ventory data to measure organizations’ environmental perfor- metrics mance. Whereas some analysts use total mass emitted, others toxic release inventory (TRI) have applied one or more of the growing number of toxicity- weighting databases aimed at predicting the environmental and health impacts of emissions. Little research is available to guide analysts in selecting among these databases. This article compares 13 methods in terms of their sophistication, com- plexity, and comprehensiveness. Seven of these methods are then evaluated as to their usefulness in weighting emissions data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA’s) toxic release inventory, and three pair-wise compari- sons are conducted. We recommend the U.S. EPA’s Risk Screening Environmental Indicators for estimating impacts to human health. We recommend the Tool for the Reduction and Assessment of Chemical Impacts for estimating impacts to human health and the environment. Address correspondence to: Michael W. Toffel Haas School of Business University of California 545 Student Services Building #1900 Berkeley, CA 94720 USA ͗
[email protected]͘ ᭧ 2004 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University Volume 8, Number 1–2 http://mitpress.mit.edu/jie Journal of Industrial Ecology 143 RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Introduction ground injection when their amounts exceed a minimum reporting threshold (U.S.