In the year 2004, Ministry of Environment & Forest, Government of India selected Gujarat Ecology Commission (GEC) as an ENVIS centre to work upon “Status of environment and related issues” for the state of Gujarat. Developing and publishing a biennial report on the State of the Environment report of Gujarat. As the ENVIS (Environmental Information System) centre, GEC has several responsibilities, which are as follows:

• Creating a data bank through collating books, reports and journals on environment conservation.
• Partnering with various institutes to gather information.
• Brining out newsletters/publications on the subject of environment conservations.
• Responding to queries and provide information of environment related-subjects.

As the ENVIS centre, GEC has been given the following objectives to achieve:

Long-term Objectives :

• To build up a repository and dissemination centre of environmental information.
• To gear up modern technologies of acquisition, processing, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information.
• To support and promote research and development and innovation in environmental information technology.

Short-term Objectives :

• To provide national environmental information service relevant to present needs and capable of development to meet the future needs of the users, originators, processors and disseminators of information;
• To build up storage, retrieval and dissemination capabilities with the ultimate objectives of disseminating information speedily to the users.
• To promote, support and assist education and personnel training programmes designed to enhance environmental information processing and utilisation capabilities;
• To promote exchange of information amongst developing countries.