Environmental Knowledge Management - Recent Advances and Issues in Environmental Science - page 46

This means that environmental knowledge involves what people know and are
concerned about regarding to the natural environment, their responsibilities towards
environmental protection and the relationship between the economy and sustainable
development.
People with environmental knowledge will process information using this knowl-
edge (system knowledge), know what can be done about the environmental problems
(action related knowledge) and understand the benefi ts (effectiveness) of environmen-
tally responsible actions [30].
A current business trend is towards the use of KM, EM, governments, and organi-
zations are concentrating on these concepts. The concept of EKM combines the man-
agement of explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge in an organization and controls
the environmental impact via the accumulation, utilization, sharing, and creation of
environmental knowledge; it is essentially a fusion of KM and EM. The EKM also
integrates environmental problems into an organization's routine operations in order
to reduce environmental pollution and increase business responsibility and concern
towards the natural environment.
Tatsuki and Masahisa [31] stated that KM can effectively solve environmental
issues. They found that a large quantity of data and information collected from EM
projects can be systemized and organized into a KM system and can be used to solve
environmental problems. The EKM combines tacit knowledge from employees' expe-
rience and explicit knowledge from environmental tasks in order to improve teamwork
effi ciency and solve environmental problems. This can not only reduce pollutant emis-
sions from production processes, but also enhance the precontrol and prevention of
environmental pollution.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EKM AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (EMIS)
The EMIS is an important component of EM that can assist both environmental and
non environmental managers who fulfill their daily tasks. The EMISs have been
broadly defined as computer based technologies that support environmental manage-
ment systems (EMS). However, Finster et al. [32] define EKM system as the consis-
tent of the tools, mechanisms, processes, structures, people, policies, strategies, data,
and information that enable the creation, capture, accumulation, storage, retrieval, use,
and transfer of knowledge that improve an organization's overall impact on the envi-
ronment. Therefore, EMIS is one specific part of EKM and could not represent whole
of it.
ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE CIRCULATION PROCESS (EKCP)
Lee et al. [6] measured KM performance using the KCP which has five components:
Knowledge creation (KC), knowledge accumulation, knowledge sharing, knowledge
utilization, and knowledge internalization. Based upon KCP theory, this study will
also evaluate the environmental performance of CSC via the EKCP which also has
five components: EKC, EKA, EKS, EKU, and EKI.