ZERI promises more jobs, less pollution

ZERI promises more jobs, less pollution

JAKARTA (JP): Technological breakthroughs at the Zero
Emissions Research Initiative (ZERI) will help lift productivity
and create jobs, a conference was told yesterday.

Heitor Gurgulino de Souza, the rector of the Tokyo-based
United Nations University (UNU), said the breakthroughs
constituted a major change for the industrial world.

The advancements, which included pollution-free manufacturing,
represented a second Green Revolution, de Souza told the
international conference on environmental protection.

"(This revolution) is focused on industrial efficiency which
offers a new vision for poverty alleviation and economic
development using the best and most appropriate technologies," he
said.

Indonesian State Minister of Environment Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja, in his address to the conference, expounded the
benefits of the zero emissions program.

"Through the application of zero emissions, economic growth is
achieved and human needs are met with improved efficiency," he
said. "While pollution and the consumption of energy and raw
materials are reduced."

Both officials were speaking at the opening session of a
three-day, third world conference on zero emissions which was
opened by President Soeharto here yesterday.

About 250 experts, both local and foreign, are participating
in the conference.

Previous world ZERI conferences have been held in the major
cities of the industrialized world, including Tokyo in 1995 and
last year in Chattanooga, Tennesse in the United States.

ZERI, which was created within the framework of the UNU's Eco
Restructuring for Sustainable Development, aims to enlist the
best minds to study ways of enabling industries to improve their
environmental performance.

It was an attempt by a UN organization to involve the business
community in the redesign of manufacturing based on the Zero
Emissions concept.

The philosophy underlying the concept, de Souza told the
conference, was that "mankind cannot expect the Earth to produce
more, human kind must do more with what the Earth produces".

"UNU/ZERI is essentially a cooperative venture between the
three worlds of government, business, and academia," he said.

De Souza said the increasing involvement of business in the
endeavor could not be underplayed.

"Make no mistake about it -- UNU/ZERI is part of an enormous
global business, and one that is growing.

"Already, it is estimated that the market for environmental
goods and services exceeds US$400 billion," he said. "By the year
2001, it is projected to grow to over $570 billion."

According to de Souza, the statistics demonstrated that
businesses were eager for new opportunities to conserve resources
and slash pollution rates.

"They want to make environmental protection not just a cost,
but a profit opportunity," he said.

"UNU/ZERI helps to exploit what is perhaps humanity's greatest
single resource, its creativity in problem solving."

He said the UNU/ZERI had shown the way for businesses to
eliminate waste, generate job opportunities and increase
productivity.

"It breaks with the traditional concept that in order to
secure higher productivity level, some creation of unemployment
must be tolerated, or that with higher growth, some pollution is
unavoidable. UNU/ZERI demonstrates that the opposite is true."

Earlier in the conference session, Sarwono said the
application of the zero emissions concept in other countries and
in various sectors proved that it was not just a theory.

Since its introduction in 1994 in Tokyo, several industries in
Namibia, Fiji, Columbia, Malaysia, the United States, Japan, and
Indonesia have applied the concepts of ZERI in redesigning their
ways of manufacturing.

Indonesia with its many natural resource-based industries such
as fruit plantations, bamboo industries, vegetable crude oil
industries and pulp and paper industries was believed to be well
suited to the ZERI concept. (aan)