Officer says 'ecolabeling' will benefit local firms

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is claiming that the planned national "ecolabeling" measures will help ensure that manufacturing and agricultural products are accepted by developed countries.

Deputy for the Supervision of Technical Infrastructure of the Environment Management at the Office of the State Minister for the Environment Masnellyarti Hilman said many advanced countries such as Germany, Japan, Singapore and Canada now required Indonesian products to be certified with an ecolabel, which guarantees a certain level of environmental protection during production.

Without an ecolabel certificate, Indonesian products would not be accepted in those advanced countries, she added.

"So we're trying to meet the developed countries' requirements as well as encouraging local firms to respect the environment," she told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Masnellyarti said the planned national ecolabel campaign would adopt some of the advanced countries' ecolabeling standards, but not all.

"It is impossible to adopt all their standards as we do not have all the required laboratories or instruments to do so and this will be very expensive for firms," she said.

Under the plan, the government will set a criteria for firms in order for them to obtain the certificate, according to her.

It was not immediately clear if the Indonesian standards for ecolabeling would be recognized by the foreign countries that adhere to international standards.

Masnellyarti said the government would set the maximum level of electricity, water and chemical substances a company may use for a product.

The firm's waste would also be measured whether or not it surpasses the maximum requirement set by the Office of the State Minister for the Environment, Masnellyarti added.

"This criteria has not yet been decided yet...," she said.

So far, the government has formulated a criteria for tissue and packaged paper products to obtain an ecolabel certificate.

For example, in the production of a ton of tissue paper, the process must not exceed 40 cubic meters of water waste, 750 kilowatts per hour of electricity, in addition to several other measurable limitations.

The tissue paper firms must also use chemical substances that are at least 90 percent biodegradable, and in line with the amount of liquid waste as stated in the Decree of the State Ministry for the Environment No. 51/1995 and possess a certified environmental management system.

Masnellyarti went on to say that a third party would issue the ecolabel certificate to a firm after testing based on the criteria issued by the government.

The government earlier said that it would implement a national ecolabel measure in June next year for manufacturing and agricultural products.

A consortium consisting of the Office of the State Minister for the Environment, Ministry of Trade and Industry, the National Standardization Agency (BSN), the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) and the Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute (LEI) are now working on the ecolabeling measure.

At present, only wood product manufacturers have introduced ecolabeling, organized by LEI, to help them pass requirements from developed countries.