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To produce a quality EPR it is important to consider all of the required elements of reporting prior to drafting the detailed text of your EPR. Apart from providing information on these essential elements, this Section also provides practical information on the report content development process.

The essential elements that are applicable to all HKSARG departments/bureaux/related organizations, whether your department/bureau/organization is policy-based, office-based or operations-based, are stipulated in the ETWB Circular Memorandum No. 1/2007 and explained in further detail in EPD's A Guide to Environmental Reporting for Controlling Officers (hereby referred to as the COER Guide). These include:

ETWB Circular Memorandum No. 1/2007	COER Guide
Controlling Officer's Profile of Key Responsibilities	Controlling Officer's Profile of Key Responsibilities
Environmental Goal	Environmental Goal
Brief Description of Environmental Policy	Environmental Policy
Environmental Objectives, Targets and Milestones	Environmental Objectives, Targets and Milestones
Description of Environmental Management and Performance	Environmental Management Analysis
	Environmental Performance Analysis
Environmental Actions Requiring Special Attention	Environmental Actions Requirement Special Attention

	Click here to download ETWB Circular Memorandum No. 1/2007 for details on each element
	Click here to COER Guide for details on each element

The contents of your environmental report should include the most significant or pressing environmental issues to your operations. Every HKSARG department/bureau is unique and as such they are expected to face different issues. Some may have more issues than others simply because of their specific nature, scope and scale of operations. Given the huge number and variety of potential issues, it is always useful to prioritize issues by first addressing those that are of most significant environmental consequences, or those that are most relevant to your core responsibilities and in areas where your influence is most significant. The table below provides some examples of potential issues:

	Examples of Issues to be Covered by the Report
Procurement and use of raw materials, goods and services	Procurement and use of raw materials, goods and services     Office computing, printing and photocopying equipment and furniture     Chemicals and other raw materials     Pesticides, herbicides and related services     Cleaning and maintenance services     Fire extinguishing equipment and services     Uniforms     Vehicles/vessels/aeroplanes /helicopters     Industrial/special purpose equipment, machines, device, plant and replacement components     Contracted printing and brochure/report production services     Contracted souvenir/tailored materials production services     Contracted refurbishment, construction and demolition services
Procurement and use of energy and fuel	Electricity     Diesel     Petrol     Town gas     Aviation fuel     Lead acid batteries     Solar powered panels and units
Procurement and use of water	Water for washrooms and pantry     Water for operation of equipment and plant     Water for construction     Water for facility and vehicle/vessel/aeroplane/helicopter maintenance and cleaning     Water for landscaping purposes     Water for amenities (e.g. swimming pools)
Procurement and use of ozone-depleting substances	Fire extinguishing equipment     Refrigerants for air-con units and refrigerator     Refrigerants for plant/equipment/special processes
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)	IAQ in managed facilities     IAQ in offices
Noise	Equipment and plant noise     Vehicle/vessel/aeroplane/helicopter noise     Construction noise     Office noise
Air emissions	Pollutants and odour from construction sites     Pollutants and odour from equipment and plant     Pollutants and odour from managed facilities     Pollutants and odour from laboratories     Pollutants and odour from office equipment (e.g. photocopiers)     Pollutants from air-con units and refrigerators     Formaldehyde from office furniture and floorings
Water discharges	Industrial wastewater     Office sewage     Site runoff     Vehicle/vessel/aeroplane/helicopter wash water
Generation, recycling and disposal of waste	Chemical waste     Construction and demolition waste     Clinical waste     Oil and grease     Garden waste     Office waste     Food waste     Recyclables (e.g. cans, paper)
Other issues	Tree planting, green space management   Training and awareness raising   Furniture and office space refurbishment   Campaigns and promotional events

	Click here for COER Guide Annex 4 Checklist of Key Environmental Impacts for Bureaux/Departments to obtain a checklist that assists your identification of issues and impacts
	Click below for related FAQ(s) from the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
	Q3 - What is the best approach to select the issues for inclusion in the EPR?       Q10 - Is there an available environmental report template that I could readily adopt?       Q11 - How do I balance my department/bureau's need to produce a short report (i.e. constraints on report length) while meeting the requirements of the ETWB Circular Memorandum No. 1/2007, the EPD Guidebook and the Benchmark Tool?
	Click below for related tip(s) from the 10 Tips for Successful EPRs:
	Tip #3 - Coherence between consecutive yearly reports is also important!       Tip #4 - Work closely with the Green Manager and/or Green Executives.       Tip #6 - Review existing environmental data and information to facilitate data collection and reporting.       Tip #8 - Learn from EPRs produced by comparable organizations, either local or overseas.

As the aim of environmental reporting is to report on internal environmental performance, it is of utmost importance that appropriate performance indicators are adopted to clearly achieve this aim.

The diagram below illustrates the process of developing appropriate performance indicators for your department/bureau, and the relationship with target-setting to achieve performance improvement:

Illustration of the Use of Indicator

In principle, your indicators should enable you to directly measure your organization's performance in relation to the significant environmental issues identified for your operations. You could include indicators to:

	Describe management efforts to influence the environmental performance of your department/bureau (i.e. Management Performance Indicators), e.g. no. of employees trained, no. of consultation sessions, no. of environmental improvement suggestions from employees that are implemented
	Describe the environmental performance of your operations (i.e. Operational Performance Indicators), e.g. units of energy consumed, units of waste generated, no. of types of environmentally preferable products in use
	Describe the local, regional, national or global condition of the environment as a result of your department/bureau's contribution (i.e. Environmental Condition Indicators), e.g. area rehabilitated in a defined local area, concentration of a specific contaminant in a water body.

Further examples of the three kinds of indicators and inspiration for development of indicators are given in GRI and ISO 14031.

Indicators could be presented in absolute or relative terms. Absolute indicators directly show the magnitude (e.g. tonnes of waste generated), while relative indicators (also called normalized indicators) provide a ratio or scale to further assess performance (e.g. % of employees trained out of the total no. of employees that need training). Relative indicators are useful but they should not replace absolute indicators in your EPR.

The following links provide useful examples, solutions and tips to identifying suitable performance indicators, and developing relevant objectives and targets for improvement.

	Click here for COER Guide Annex 6 Examples of Analysis of Environmental Performance
	Click here for COER Guide Annex 5 Examples of Environmental Targets and Milestones
	Click below for related FAQ(s) from the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
	Q5 - How should I meaningfully report environmental performance? Is describing the specific environmental initiatives and programmes that are undertaken in the reporting year enough?       Q6 - What indicators would be suitable for my department/bureau to use to measure and report environmental performance?       Q8 - How should I set objectives and targets in light of the pressure that those set objectives and targets will need to be achieved and will be more difficult to achieve year after year?
	Click below for related tip(s) from the 10 Tips for Successful EPRs:
	Tip #7 - When measurement is not feasible, apply common sense and educated estimation to obtain performance level information.

Experienced reporters could adopt indicators suggested by the Global Reporting Initiative in its Guidelines.

Click here to Useful Resource Documents, Reference Materials and Links to find the website to download the GRI Guidelines

To enhance your department/bureau/organization's performance, refer to Best Practices for Environmental Performance Improvement. These suggestions can help you to improve performance and gather more comprehensive or detailed information for reporting purposes.

Click here to download Best Practices for Environmental Performance Improvement for ideas to improve environmental performance and management.

A report framework can be produced based on your awareness of the essential elements for reporting and the detailed contents for your EPR resulting from your scoping exercise. A useful way to prepare your framework is by sketching out the EPR as a cabinet with different drawers. Each drawer would represent a specific HKSARG required element, with relevant issues included in each corresponding drawer. Alternatively you could prepare a graphic flow chart or tree diagram to help you visualize each section, the contents of each section and the linkages between sections.

Click here for COER Guide Annex 7 Summary Table to assist you prepare of the Report Framework