Evaluating Risk and Promoting Public Advocacy

An Effective Practice

Description

The Toxics Release Inventory alone does not have the capability to compare the risks of different chemical releases. In order to rank chemical hazards, the Environmental Defense has developed an on-line program, the "Environmental Scorecard." Tools like the Scorecard help communities identify priority pollutants and develop risk-based pollution reduction strategies to make communities safer and cleaner. In addition, Scorecard has an environmental justice analyzer function that examines the distribution of chemical releases according to socioeconomic variables.

Goal / Mission

The goal of the "Environmental Scorecard" is to compare the risks of different chemical releases through a combination of raw data on toxic releases and environmental and human health data.

Results / Accomplishments

The "Environmental Scorecard" website uses a scoring system to identify environmental releases of toxic chemicals that are likely to pose the greatest risk to human health. The system adjusts the amount of a chemical that is released (in pounds) using a weighting factor (a chemical's "toxic equivalency potential"), so that chemical releases can be compared on a common scale that takes into account differences in toxicity and exposure potential.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
Environmental Defense
Primary Contact
Cathryn Tonne
Environmental Defense
257 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10010
(212) 616-1309
ctonne@environmentaldefense.org
http://www.environmentaldefense.org
Topics
Environmental Health / Toxins & Contaminants
Environmental Health / Environmental Justice
Organization(s)
Environmental Defense
Source
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Date of publication
2002
Location
USA
For more details
http://scorecard.goodguide.com/index.tcl

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Related Content for: Evaluating Risk and Promoting Public Advocacy

An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.