The following methods were systematically evaluated regarding their soundness, feasibility and utility as environmental farm management tools: SALCA (Switzerland), INDIGO (France), REPRO and KUL/USL (both Germany). The evaluation was carried out by means of a specifically developed method using 15 valuation criteria. For each criterion decision rules were defined. Each method has its particular strenghts and limitations: SALCA covers the environmental issues very well but is not user-friendly, INDIGO allows a deep analysis of cropping systems but not of animal husbandry, REPRO covers the agricultural production particularly well but is time-consuming and the results of KUL/USL are formulated in a useful way at the expense of transparency. The application of the methods on a network of 13 farms in three countries showed a high correlation betxeen all methods regarding the environmental ranking, but only a low conformity comparing the recommendations given to the farmers, mainly due to conceptual differences between the methods.