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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.06.005 Byline: Ana Claudia Neri, Luis Enrique Sanchez Abbreviations: CSI, Cement sustainability initiative; EIA, Environmental impact assessment; EMS, Environmental management system; WBCSD, World business council for sustainable development Abstract: A procedure to evaluate mine rehabilitation practices during the operational phase was developed and validated. It is based on a comparison of actually observed or documented practices with internationally recommended best practices (BP). A set of 150 BP statements was derived from international guides in order to establish the benchmark. The statements are arranged in six rehabilitation programs under three categories: (1) planning (2) operational and (3) management, corresponding to the adoption of the plan-do-check-act management systems model to mine rehabilitation. The procedure consists of (i) performing technical inspections guided by a series of field forms containing BP statements; (ii) classifying evidences in five categories; and (iii) calculating conformity indexes and levels. For testing and calibration purposes, the procedure was applied to nine limestone quarries and conformity indexes were calculated for the rehabilitation programs in each quarry. Most quarries featured poor planning practices, operational practices reached high conformity levels in 50% of the cases and management practices scored moderate conformity. Despite all quarries being ISO 14001 certified, their management systems pay low attention to issues pertaining to land rehabilitation and biodiversity. The best results were achieved by a quarry whose expansion was recently submitted to the environmental impact assessment process, suggesting that public scrutiny may play a positive role in enhancing rehabilitation practices. Conformity indexes and levels can be used to chart the evolution of rehabilitation practices at regular intervals, to establish corporate goals and for communication with stakeholders. Author Affiliation: Escola Politecnica, University of Sao Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes, 2373 Sao Paulo, SP 05508-900, Brazil Article History: Received 29 October 2009; Revised 10 May 2010; Accepted 2 June 2010

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.06.025 Byline: M.B. Galan (a), D. Peschard (a), H. Boizard (b) Keywords: Environmental indicator; Environmental impact; Farming practice; Environmental management system Abstract: Faced with society's increasing expectations, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) review considers environmental management to be an ever more critical criterion in the allocation of farm subsidies. With the goal of evaluating the environmental friendliness of farm practices, France's agricultural research and extension services have built a range of agricultural/environmental diagnostic tools over recent years. The objective of the present paper is to compare the five tools most frequently used in France: IDEA, DIAGE, DIALECTE, DIALOGUE and INDIGO. All the tools have the same purpose: evaluation of the impact of farm practices on the environment via indicators and monitoring of farm management practices. When tested on a sample of large-scale farms in Picardie, the five tools sometimes produced completely different results: for a given farm, the most supposedly significant environmental impacts depend on the tool used. These results lead to differing environmental management plans and raise the question of the methods' pertinence. An analysis grid of diagnostic tools aimed at specifying their field of validity, limits and relevance was drawn up. The resulting comparative analysis enables to define each tool's domain of validity and allows to suggest lines of thought for developing more relevant tools for (i) evaluating a farm's environmental performance and (ii) helping farmers to develop a plan for improving practices within the framework of an environmental management system. Author Affiliation: (a) AlternatecH section Agro-Transfert, F-80200 Estrees-Mons, France (b) INRA, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Unite d'Agronomie de Laon-Reims-Mons, Estrees-Mons, BP 136, F-80203 Peronne cedex, France Article History: Received 30 October 2004; Revised 9 May 2005; Accepted 20 June 2006