A regulatory trap.
Russian companies are forced to transfer the same environmental data to several government information systems at once. According to Obertor experts, about 70% of the information in reporting forms is duplicated. As a result, ecologists spend time not on solving environmental problems, but on filling out documents and adjusting indicators.
The problem is particularly acute in retail: information about waste has to be manually transferred to six departmental systems that do not exchange data between them. The situation is complicated by frequent changes in reporting requirements and formats.
At the same time, duplication hinders not only businesses, but also the state: scattered information leads to mistakes and makes it difficult to plan environmental infrastructure.
One possible solution is a single digital window for environmental reporting, where data is entered once and automatically distributed to the necessary forms. The technological basis of this approach has already been tested by Obertor and Online Ecology together with the VkusVill marketing network. According to project participants, automation can free up more than 500 hours of specialist work per year.
However, to fully solve the problem, it is not enough to digitize documents: government systems need uniform formats, libraries and a data exchange mechanism. Otherwise, digitalization will only accelerate duplication, but not eliminate it.