Poor green laws attract dirty industries
Poor green laws attract dirty industries
JAKARTA (JP): Many national and multinational firms once
forced to close down their dirty industries due to strict local
environmental regulations, are now shifting investment and
production to countries with less stringent rules.
Prof. Rolf-Ulrich Sprenger, Director of Environmental Economic
Division, at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich,
Germany, said yesterday that slack environmental regulations,
along with traditional determinants like cheap labor and energy
costs, and an abundant natural resources supply, had attracted
foreign investment.
"According to several surveys in West Germany during the last
decade, environmental considerations were generally one of the
less important reasons to invest abroad," Sprenger told a seminar
on environment and manpower organized by the Indonesian Manpower
Foundation (YTKI) and the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES).
Industrial relocation is one of the numerous negative effects
of poor enforcement of environmental regulations. Sprenger
observed that there might be some other negative effects like the
loss of jobs due to the closure of polluting plants or project
cancellations and delays, but he underlined that the negative
effects were outnumbered by the positive ones.
He said that environmental programs have created thousands of
jobs in the pollution control equipment industry, the
construction industry, environmental research and development,
the operations and maintenance of pollution control equipment,
municipalities and government environmental agencies.
"A study prepared for the United States assessed the annual
impact of environmental expenditures on employment at
approximately 4 million jobs in 1992," he said, adding that the
figures represented about three percent of total employment.
Three surveys in West Germany in the past decade also showed
how the environmental field has benefited the job market. In 1990
there were 546,000 working in the field, or 1.9 percent of the
employment in West Germany.
Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri, a professor from the law schools of
the Gadjah Mada University and the University of Indonesia,
supported Sprenger's argument that environmental programs would
increase employment opportunities.
He said that the implementation of environmental policies
carried out through environmental regulations called for ample
manpower.
Hampered
The lack of personnel and professionalism were two of the
factors that had hampered the implementation the environmental
law in this country, according to Koesnadi.
"Upgrading courses should be provided on a regular basis to
police, prosecutors, judges and counselors to ascertain an up-to-
date knowledge of environmental regulations for proper law
enforcement," Koesnadi said.
State Minister of Environment/Head of the Agency for the
Environmental Impact Management (Bapedal) Sarwono Kusumaatmadja
said in his written speech presented by the agency deputy head,
PL Coutrier, that all companies, big, small or medium (SEM),
should pay attention to the environment.
"SEMs expanding in the textile, electroplating, and food and
beverage sectors are known to be pollution intensive and
significantly impact the local environment in which they
operate," he said.(sim)