Cleaner Technology and Environment Management
Cleaner Technology and Environment Management 26 March, 2010 – While many Bhutanese industries have been in the news for their poor pollution standards and average balance sheets, some are looking at adopting a program that could address both issues.
The ministry of economic affairs’ program called ‘Cleaner Technology and Environmental Management’, supported by the Norwegian government, aims to make industries more environment friendly and save unnecessary waste, increase productivity and become more competitive.
In 2008, the project had taken 10 Bhutanese industries and five ministry staff on a 15-day ‘clean production’ training trip to Norway. Today, there are still some doubts as well as positive reviews on having more efficient clean production methods.
“Penden cement has seen a 30 percent increase in production, through the use of more efficient and environment friendly practices,” said Penden cement deputy engineer, Udai Kaflay.
“I’ve noticed in my factory that, with clean production, there’s more savings and workers’ productivity also increases,” said Thinley Palden Dorji head of Bhutan marbles and minerals ltd.
There was also general consensus on the need of a national centre for cleaner production in Bhutan.
A Norwegian university of science and technology (NTNU) team is in Bhutan to try and incorporate more companies and further help the existing 10 pilot companies on the clean production system.
Professor Annik from NTNU in her presentation showed that Bhutanese companies could move to environmental sustainability and efficiency by having cleaner production policies in the manufacturing process. Professor Annik said that the latest environmental strategies were on using environmental management to make business more competitive.
She said that what was also important for clean production is a proper environmental management system, starting from the top that must come up with policies that are applied at all levels.
Professor Fritz Balkau introduced a United Nations initiative called the cleaner production declaration (CPD), which is a written and voluntary commitment for implementation of clean production as an internal company instrument. The document will be signed by a host of senior management personnel from industries.
Professor Fritz Balkau said, “Apart from the environmental management system, the other part of clean development is technology.”
He said that, under technology, the simpler ones were turning of the lights or water tap, while the more complex ones would be following diagrams that would calculate the amount of raw material being put into processing, how much was being wasted, what amount of waste was generated and if other cheaper and more environment friendly methods could be used.
Unlike companies in Bhutan that saw corporate social responsibility as charity to monastic institutions, the presentation by Helena Jordan highlighted that internationally it should actually be used to meet the companies social and environmental obligations.
The presentation said that in fact CSR could be used by Bhutanese companies, like in Europe, to improve the bottom line by focusing on areas specific to the company, like insurance companies abroad sensitising people for free on how to avoid traffic accidents, thereby bringing down insurance claims.
During the panel and open discussion, some industrial houses expressed the lack of management capacity in implementing clean production, especially for small and medium enterprises. Jigme mining highlighted the point thatm though the factory wanted to put in anti dust equipmentm BPC had said that there was not enough electricity.
The national environment commission advisor, Dasho Paljor J. Dorji, raised the point that Bhutan could no longer be a social welfare state, but must have economic development, so it would be important to support industries and not create roadblocks.
In response to a question from Kuensel, Palden Thinley, as vice president of BCCI, agreed that until recently various trade associations had failed to adequately represent the interest of the majority of small and medium scale businessv with larger industries benefiting more from these kinds of programs.
Professor Fritz said that it is important that small businesses form their own associations to represent their own interests.
Source: kuenselonline