Thermodynamic indicators for environmental certification

The Earth is an open thermodynamic system, that remains in a steady state far from the equilibrium, through energy and matter exchanges with the surrounding environment. These natural constraints, which prevent the system from maximizing its entropy, are threatened by human action and our ecosystem needs urgent protection. In this viewpoint the environmental certification was born, according to international standards ISO 14001, ISO 14040, and European Regulation EMAS.(1-3) These are voluntary adhesions to a program of environmental protection by companies, administrations and organizations which, starting from the respect of the existing environmental laws and regulations, decide to further improve their environmental performance. To obtain and maintain certification of a system is necessary to apply some indicators to evaluate its environmental performance and to demonstrate its progressive improvement. Here we propose to use for this purpose the thermodynamic indicators produced from emergy analysis by Odum.(4,5) The case study is Montalcino city (Italy) and emergy indicators are used to evaluate environmental performance of this system where exist different activities, from agricultural productions, to tourism. Results show that emergy analysis could become a valid standard monitoring method for environmental certification, especially in consideration of its wide application field.