Environmental research, standards and policy information under one roof
All parts of society, communities, individuals, businesses, and state and local governments need access to accurate environmental information. It must also be sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks. The project 'An environmental standards information portal for Europe' (SIPE) provided a new level of quality for environmental goals in the EU. The SIPE-RTD web portal links information concerning standards, research and policies in four environmental categories. These are water and marine; air; waste and sludge; and soil and sediment. It contains about 190 policies, 1 100 standards, and more than 700 EU-funded projects and 900 research results. It went live in mid-2014. SIPE-RTD provides numerous ways to search for information. There is a broad word search function, a category search, a substance search feature and, finally, element search functionality. Relevant information was gathered on EU projects and outcomes that address standards innovation. The emphasis was primarily on projects that directly or indirectly deal with the four environmental categories as well as metadata on European standards and policies. This large amount of information was then uploaded to SIPE-RTD. An input module and a document repository handle the easy transfer and uploading of new information. Extensive hyperlinking was implemented. An Interfacing Group and a Stakeholder Network made up of various key actors were established to help develop and test SIPE-RTD. SIPE promoted and increased the use of research findings in support of air, water, soil and waste standards to stakeholders from research, standardisation and policy sectors, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. With SIPE-RTD serving as a knowledge brokerage tool for Europe, the continued development and effective implementation of environmental standards is all but assured.
Keywords
Environmental standards, policy, environmental information, human health, standards information
