European Roundtable On Cleaner Production

Oslo, November 1, 1997

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As newly appointed Minister of the Environment it is my pleasure to welcome you to this European Roundtable on Cleaner Production. The initiative includes all of Europe, both east and west, and aims to build up skills and understanding. This alone is reason enough to support it. In addition you are working with crucial aspects of an even greater project: how to make lifestyles, production and consumption patterns more sustainable.

We all agree that industry should make money. We also agree that human activity should stay well within the carrying capacity of nature, so as to make room for biological diversity and human enjoyment.

It is our task as environment authorities to set environmental objectives and choose the right policy tools, it is your task as managers and professional engineers to apply the tools of science to achieve these goals. Only by working together can we be sure to reach good results.

Environment authorities set environmental aims and priorities and follow up by implementing measures to achieve them. We cannot, however, study and regulate every detail of what companies and consumers should do. Our aim is that each decision maker should have sufficient knowledge and incentives to make the right decision. Incentives might include laws and regulations, taxes and charges, but the satisfaction of a job well done and the reassurance that the world is moving in the right direction can also be incentives.

The concepts of cleaner production and quality control are now being applied throughout the lifecycle of products. Both the design of products and specifications of products that are bought in from other companies are being examined to increase total eco-efficiency. We are now leaving behind the early phase where the number of slogans and ill-defined concepts far exceeded the instances of practical implementation. Today, tools such as environmental auditing, international standardization and labelling help companies and consumers reach well defined and testable aims.

Our highest global priorities are to solve the long term problems of loss of biodiversity, climate change and long range transport and accumulation of toxic compounds in ecosystems. On a regional level we have worked for years to solve the problems of long range pollution through air and water. We are taking on our part of these tasks, but all governments have to cooperate to solve the problems.

In the end we may find that increasing efficiency even by a factor 4 or a factor 10 may not be enough, so that we may have to look at the pattern of consumption as well as on improving production. Still, we will not get far if companies throughout the economy don't have the knowledge, practical tools and established routines that are necessary.

Governments have already identified a number of obstacles facing environmentally friendly production. A project that reduces energy use can, for example, seem highly uneconomic if energy is subsidized. Water saving can be abandoned if water and sewerage rates are artificially cheap. Countries do not always apply the "polluter pays"- principle to emissions and risks, and they do not always make sure that user rates cover the full cost for water, electricity and land use. National policy reform is needed to make sure that what is profitable is also environmentally sound.

At the Environment for Europe conference in Sofia in 1995, environment ministers set ambitious aims for the spreading of cleaner production practices. We are well placed to achieve these aims. The results from your work have met with success in improving production processes that achieve lower emissions and less resource use. Cleaner production training programs were evolved to support industry in countries in transition, and I understand that they have been more successful than anyone expected.

We must, on the other hand, realize that such projects cannot be started without some economic support from governments. We in Norway are proud that our initial support to cleaner production training programs helped bring these to one third of the relevant companies in Poland. We have built on our experience from this project to build a basis for cleaner production support in other countries, and urge other countries to take their share in supporting such programmes.

In the long term these activities must become self- supporting. I have mentioned national policy reforms as part of the foundation. Another component is to create a system for ploughing back part of the savings to keep the program going. In the longer term your cleaner production projects should also identify and prepare new investment. Here, measures such as the new loan softening fund of the Nordic Environment Financing Corporation can be useful.

At the Environment for Europe conference in Aarhus next June, Ministers will meet to examine what can be done to promote more environmentally friendly products and production systems.

At this conference you will examine concepts, exchange experiences and discuss the way forward. I hope that you can also give some thought to the messages that governments could receive from you. What barriers have you met? How can government policy make it easier to reach your aims?

You have already shown your strong commitment and capacity for hard work by choosing to fill this weekend with meetings. Consequently, I do not hesitate to challenge you to send two messages: one to your own governments on what can be done to support your aims and another to the Aarhus Conference on how governments can cooperate. I wish you luck and am looking forward to your results.