An Information Modeling Methodology for Sustainability Standards

Standards and regulations are developed and introduced in the market to meet the needs of specific domains. As standards are usually developed by experts within a particular domain, the modeling requirements necessary to represent the information associated with these standards are often not well understood. The lack of clear understanding of information requirements creates an environment where information models can become difficult to produce from standards, and the criteria for complying with these standards may be obscure. The variety of challenges encountered in codifying standards using information models necessitates a carefully devised methodology that takes all areas of the whole enterprise into consideration. This paper presents a methodology for the development of information models to complement and support standards based on the Zachman framework for enterprise architecture. In this paper, we will discuss some of the challenges encountered in modeling information for standards and regulations related to sustainability, and subsequently describe how our approach can be used to address these challenges. We will illustrate our approach by developing an example information model to support RoHS (Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment). This work could lead to the development of software tools and environments for computer aided standards development. Finally, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of our methodology.