March 6, 2009 : Company announcement

Pilot phase of ZKS-Abfall starts at CeBIT 2009

Hanover – With eGovernment 2.0 and the 2007-2009 implementation plans for the program "eGovernment 2.0 – the Programme of the Federal Government", the German government has set the goal of continuing to strengthen electronic communications between business and administration. The goal is a significant reduction in the costs of bureaucracy, allowing electronic data to move without media discontinuities, reducing processing times, and to ensure data security. In all, seven complex eGovernment projects are in focus in the process chain arena, especially overall notification requirements along value creation chains in the economy. The electronic waste record procedure is a flagship initiative in the process chain segment, with implementation of the Central Waste Coordination Office (ZKS-Abfall) as its technical infrastructure. Since July 2007, IBM Germany has worked as general contractor on ZKS-Abfall, with Consist Software Solutions and Consist ITU contributing their expertise in the electronic implementation of waste-management processes. According to the Ordinance on Waste Recovery and Disposal Records (NachwV) as of April 1, 2010 all parties involved in the process of disposal of hazardous waste will be required to maintain electronic records – this applies to waste producers, disposers, and transporters, as well as the responsible government agencies.

The project is based on the law and the Ordinance on the Simplification of Waste Management Monitoring. The legal and technical basis for these regulations was developed at the request of the German Conference of Environmental Ministers by the Federal Environment Ministry, in collaboration with the German federal states (Länder) and with representatives of the business community. This ambitious project has two separate goals: Under the motto of "Bureaucracy Reduction and Better Law-making," the monitoring of waste, particularly in the form of the electronic records procedure for the environmentally sound disposal of waste, should be permanently simplified both for companies affected and for the responsible federal state agencies. At the moment, there are still about 3 million consignment notes created and used in a costly paper form format every year. But at the same time, the consistent use of modern IT technology should make the legal monitoring of hazardous waste in the interest of environmental protection much more efficient than it has been in the past. The result will lead to a win-win situation for all concerned. In this context, the project therefore takes on a pilot function for environmental protection as well.

Technical implementation and ongoing operation are the responsibility of the federal states, represented here by the " Länderarbeitsgruppe Gemeinsame Abfall DV-Systeme" (GADSYS).

The project is breaking new ground in many ways for eGovernment in Germany:

• comprehensive collaboration between the Federal Republic and the German federal states for a common solution in the sense of a one-stop government
• definition of common standards for data exchange between all participants (Federal Government, federal states, and companies) through a shared portal of ZKS-Abfall
• mass application for electronic signatures in the context of eGovernment
• use of the Federal Government's basic eGovernment components

March 4, 2009 is a key date for the project for two reasons. At 1:00 PM, Dr. Hans Bernhard Beus (State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and also the Federal Government Commissioner for Information Technology), Minister Dr. Dietmar Woidke (Ministry for Rural Development, the Environment, and Consumer Protection of the State of Brandenburg), and Reinhold von Eben-Worlée (VCI Nord (Association of the German Chemical Industry of Northern Germany)), along with the Chairman of the “Länderarbeitsgruppe Gemeinsame Abfall DV-Systeme” (GADSYS), Klaus-Dieter Koß (State Agency for Nature and Environment of North Rhine-Westphalia), will announce the official start of the pilot phase of the eGovernment process for companies (waste management participants, licensees, and providers). This will enable companies to prepare intensively for the electronic records procedure starting April 1, 2010, and the inclusion of electronic signatures starting in February, 2011.

Furthermore, the Federal Office for Goods Transport (BAG) was also officially included in the project, for administrative and legal cooperation in the business area of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Building, and Urban Affairs (BVBS, and represented by the deputy commissioner for IT in the BVBS, Mrs. Greulich). The BAG regularly inspects trucks carrying hazardous waste. In the future, the subproject of administrative and legal cooperation for transport inspections will allow BAG inspectors direct access to the relevant data in the electronic records procedure in the systems of the German Länder, as well as enable the description of hazardous wastes in the context of road inspections. Besides access by the BAG to this information, access by the federal state police forces is also feasible, once the technical requirements are met. The electronic data flow from ZKS-Abfall will thus be distributed to additional agencies, avoiding further media discontinuities. Transport companies will then no longer need to carry the numerous consignment notes in paper format.

With the establishment of ZKS-Abfall, the project for the electronic waste records procedure is now focusing on electronic communications and flexible contact options for business and industry. All partners in the project thus contribute to more quality, customer orientation, and intensity of use and security of government online services. These factors have become significant international business location factors for enterprises. In order to take the lead in future "electronic location competition," the participants are supposed to be even more intensively involved in the design of new online offerings, and they will be starting together on March 4.

Background information

In the eANV project, the responsible supervisory authorities of the German federal states are cooperating with business and industry and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The 16 German federal states (Länder) are represented by the Working Group of the Federal States on "Shared Waste IT Systems" (GADSYS), and their office, the InformationsKoordinierende Stelle Abfall-DV-Systeme Information (IKA = ~ Coordination Office for Waste IT Systems). Business representatives come from waste-producing companies, transport firms, and disposal organizations. Due to its high potential for innovation, the Federal Ministry of the Interior is supporting this project in the context of the Federal Government's High-Tech Strategy.

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State Secretary Dr. Hans Bernhard Beus (Federal Ministry of the Interior), Reinhold von Eben-Worlée (VCI Nord (Association of the German Chemical Industry of Northern Germany ), Minister Dr. Dietmar Woidke (Ministry for Rural Development, the Environment, and Consumer Protection of the State of Brandenburg), Klaus-Dieter Koß (GADSYS Working Group / State Agency for Nature and Environment of North Rhine-Westphalia) Source: IBM Germany
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