How GCCEI examines a system
GCCEI uses a disciplined public method designed to prevent preferred answers from arriving before the problem has been understood.
1. Define the question
Identify the actual environmental, scientific, educational or governance question. A technically correct answer to the wrong question remains the wrong answer.
2. Understand the material
Characterise composition, moisture, ash, contaminants, variability and other properties relevant to the system.
3. Understand the process
Describe what physically and chemically occurs, including real operating conditions rather than relying on labels.
4. Establish mass flows
Identify what enters, what changes form and where outputs, emissions and residues go.
5. Establish energy flows
Distinguish gross generation, internal consumption, net export and energy actually displaced.
6. Characterise emissions and residues
Examine substance identity, concentration, mass loading, speciation, controls and residual streams.
7. Follow environmental pathways
Where relevant, follow Substance → Emission → Dispersion → Transformation → Deposition → Exposure → Dose → Potential Consequence.
8. Distinguish hazard, exposure and risk
The existence of a hazardous substance is important evidence. It is not automatically proof of population harm.
9. Define the comparison system
Set comparable equipment, facility, waste/resource, product-use and lifecycle boundaries and identify the counterfactual.
10. Examine operating reality
Consider scale, reliability, startup, shutdown, upset conditions, monitoring and actual product destinations.
11. Identify uncertainty
State what is measured, modelled, inferred, unresolved or unavailable and whether that uncertainty changes the conclusion.
12. Reach only the conclusion supported by evidence
The purpose of the method is not to guarantee a positive or negative answer. It is to ensure that the answer follows the evidence.
Evidence before conclusion. Understanding is not the preliminary stage of GCCEI's work. It is the work.