Environmental performance evaluation procedure: application in the cuban energy sector

The present article proposes a structured approach to assessing environmental performance through a procedure that establishes a course of action to complete the evaluation of corporate environmental performance, integrating environmental indicators that respond to major policies and strategies. The proposal aims to present theoretical contributions to the assessment of corporate environmental performance in the Cuban environment, to complement the assessment of environmental performance outcome measures to ensure the effectiveness of policies, strategies and targets. The procedure facilitates the selection of environmental indicators based on strategies and major environmental issues, integrating standards and tools such as the ISO 14000, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), and multi-criteria methods. The study also proposes an overall environmental performance based on the level of compliance with the goals of environmental indicators defined for displaying a single value in the evaluation of environmental performance. For validation, the procedure was applied in four small- and medium-sized power stations, where environmental indicators were defined, calculated, and weighted using the Analytic Network Process (ANP) multi-criteria method, which was later integrated to the global index of environmental performance to be evaluated according the numerical value. Also, the application facilitated the identification of critical points and improvement opportunities to redirect efforts to address the main weaknesses.