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Small Companies Far from Meeting 'Green' Standards |
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By Diego Cevallos*
Pressure
is rising in Mexico for small industries to be incorporated into
a new initiative for measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
MEXICO CITY - Slowly, the biggest companies
of Latin America are adopting environmental regulations to measure
and reduce emissions of what are known as greenhouse gases, which
trap the Sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
But for small and medium businesses, which are the majority, the
issue is barely on the horizon.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) applauded the Mexican
government and business sector for adopting in August a voluntary
program to measure and reduce emissions of gases like carbon dioxide
that contribute to global climate change.
Mexico, with a population of 110 million, is responsible for an
estimated 1.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Project already has the participation
of 150 companies from around the globe. Financed by international
agencies, the plan offers companies of all types -- including small
and medium sized firms -- training and instruments to measures their
emissions, means for identifying ways to reduce them, and advice
on how to attract investment in clean technology.
Mexico is the first developing country to join the project. This
Latin American nation has some 48,000 companies, and 75 percent
fail to comply with environmental regulations, admit government
authorities.
Jonathan Lash, president of the non-governmental World Resources
Institute (WRI), which along with the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development funds the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, said
that by joining the effort Mexico has put itself in an environmental
leadership position.
Lash underscored that a developing country has now adopted clear
commitments, while the United States, the world's leading greenhouse
gas producer, refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change,
which sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol ''is a good initiative, but it is just
the beginning, and we can't rest on our laurels,'' said Diego Masera,
UNEP coordinator for Industry, Technology and Trade for Latin America
and the Caribbean.
''I hope especially that all the small and medium companies take
advantage of it,'' because they are the ones outside the environmental
regulations, Masera told Tierramérica. He also hopes the program
will be replicated in other countries of the region.
Eighty percent of Latin American and Caribbean companies are considered
small or medium sized, and their compliance with environmental protection
standards is still more a dream than a reality.
And many of these firms are barely surviving, due to the lack of
credits and access to technology, so environmental matters are not
a priority for them, according to Masera.
Of the certificates presented annually by the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) that validate productive processes that
are environmentally appropriate and sustainable, less then three
percent go to companies in Latin America and the Caribbean, and
of those few, the vast majority go to firms in Argentina and Brazil.
Most of the companies that have taken on environmental commitments
and have submitted to outside controls are the region's biggest
and most powerful.
''In the Mexican business world, as in the rest of Latin America,
the application of environmental standards is not a priority,''
Eduardo Prieto, president of Mexico's Business Council for Sustainable
Development, told Tierramérica.
In his opinion, most executives continue to believe that environmental
regulations represent excessive expenses for their businesses, ''even
though it has been proven that eco-efficiency leads to a reduction
of costs,'' a notion that has begun to take root in some of the
bigger corporations.
The expert commented that small and medium companies are ''small
predators of the environment'' and that if taken as a group the
damage they cause is greater than that of the bigger corporations.
As for the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Prieto maintains that it is
an effort to ''reverse the trends we are seeing in emissions'' worldwide,
but recognizes that its impact would be relatively small, since
Mexico and the rest of Latin America contribute little to the greenhouse
gas problem.
The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identifies
carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide as the main gases contributing
to the greenhouse effect, at levels of 60, 20 and six percent, respectively.
To confront this problem, the international community drew up the
Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which would enter into force if the United
States would ratify it.
The Latin American and Caribbean region, where 24 countries have
ratified the Protocol, is responsible for 11 percent of global carbon
dioxide emissions. Brazil and Mexico are among the 20 highest producers
of this pollutant.
These gases do exist naturally in the Earth's atmosphere, and the
retention of the Sun's heat is beneficial to a certain degree, but
human activities, particularly the combustion of fossil fuels, has
released such great quantities of the gases that they are altering
the global climate.
In Masera's opinion, it is important that Mexican business executives,
with the support of the government, set their sights on reducing
emissions, as the country is the regional leader in releasing carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere.
Mexico's net emissions of this gas are estimated to be 444.5 million
metric tons, 67 percent produced by combustion of fossil fuels,
making the country a leading polluter, said UNEP in its study Geo
Latin America and the Caribbean 2003.
* Diego Cevallos is an IPS correspondent.
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