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Annex 3 Welcome Remarks Opening Session Organized by UNEP in collaboration with ILMC and CDG 22-24 February 2000, Manila Presented by Lilia Casanova Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure, on behalf of UNEP, in particular, of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE), to welcome you all, but most especially the participants from developing countries, to this workshop on Environmental Technology Assessment. UNEP also expresses its gratitude to all those who have worked to ensure that this Workshop becomes a successful event. UNEP is represented here today by the IETC office in Japan and the ROAP in Bangkok. We particularly want to thank our partner organisations - the International Lead Management Center (ILMC) of the U.S.A. and the Carl Duisburg Gesselschaft (CDG) of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Tecnicas Reunidas (TR) of Spain, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Philippine Recyclers Inc. (PRI)- and the local counterparts here in the Philippines who are providing assistance to this event. We know also that much work has been done by others who are not here, including the UNEP Production and Consumption Unit, based in Paris, who developed the idea of the workshop in the first place and gave practical guidance to the organisers. The importance of applying the right technologies in the national development process is clear to everyone, but sometimes the environmental and health impacts are overlooked by the technology promoters. The idea of "clean technologies" - actually 'cleaner' technologies, since nothing is perfectly clean - came to be adopted by many national agencies, but the issue is how to recognise a "clean" technology in the first place? Without some method for evaluating technologies for their environmental impact, the business of technology transfer remains a chancy affair. Thus the notion of "Environmental Technology Assessment" - or EnTA for short - was born. EnTA is a joint programme of the former Industry and Economics Programme Action Center (IE/PAC) of UNEP in Paris, whose work related to cleaner production is now largely taken care of by the Production and Consumption Unit (PCU) of the DTIE, and of the International Environmental Technology Center (IETC). The PCU focuses on EnTA for process technologies by industries while IETC focuses on EnTA of environmentally sound technologies for urban environmental and freshwater management, whether by governments, civil societies or industries. But you will hear much more about EnTA shortly, from people who are more knowledgeable about it than I. Right now I want just to stress the importance of using EnTA to make the right decisions on technology choice. It can be commercial decisions of what to import, government decisions on what processes to license, decisions on what environmental technology to adopt and apply, on regulatory decisions on how to write a permit, and even decisions by exporters on how to market their new processes or environmental technologies. EnTA is for everyone. It applies to local processes and technologies as much as imported ones, and can be used at small scale and for big industrial plants. It is just as useful for industry departments as it is to environmental organizations, since it reveals aspects of efficiency and effectiveness, infrastructure needs and supply chains. We will see all this shortly. This early part of the workshop would be the right moment to explain why UNEP is involved. Well, UNEP is involved for two interconnected reasons. On one hand, from the production or industry side, if we have a polluting process it is easy to buy a treatment plant to fix this problem. But treatment plants are expensive to buy, expensive to run, and make no return on the investment. In many cases the treatment is not as effective as we want anyway. The cleaner production approach sidesteps this by using better production technologies, and more efficient operation. The result is less pollution, AND a more productive factory. We call this a win-win situation. But it is sometimes hard to persuade people to adopt this approach. UNEP has been promoting the cleaner production approach in the region for over 10 years now, and we are pleased by the uptake within governments and industry. But the greater the uptake, the greater becomes the need to identify cleaner and safer technology alternatives. We cannot always believe the sales agents - we need to work out ourselves if the alternative is better on all criteria, and if it does not after all have a down-side somewhere. And as cleaner production becomes a household word, we need a method like EnTA to help us along. On the other hand, from the consumption side, households will always produce waste, i.e., solid waste or wastewater. Waste can be reduced but not totally avoided. Waste avoidance is ideal but it is not yet popular. Waste avoidance and reduction are value laden practices that require a lot of value orientation or reorientation in societies for them to be accepted. And much of the responsibility to make people and individuals aware of the right kind of values and 'soft' technologies to apply - e.g., the management systems and procedures and sound practices to avoid waste, reduce waste or reuse or recycle waste - still belongs to Municipal governments. EnTA is a method that will help Municipal governments and communities identify and select which technology, 'hard' or 'soft', will be more appropriate to adopt and use. We hope that this workshop starts a chain reaction of other agencies, institutions and organisations using and promoting and doing training on EnTA. I note a number of important regional organisations represented here this week, as for example the Asia Pacific Roundtable on Cleaner Production which can I am sure do a lot to give the EnTA idea a push. Several of you are from institutes concerned with technology transfer. Well, knowing how to recognize a good technology is an essential first step, and teaching this step to decision-makers can do a lot to put the development process on a better track. Many of you will therefore have a double role of using EnTA, and promoting EnTA to others. UNEP is ready to help you to organize similar events in your countries, and in fact one of the goals of this workshop is to compile a good set of training material for you all to use back home. Of course many of you are also concerned with improving the performance of the lead industry, and the practical material and knowledge you will gain here will I am sure be of immense use to you. UNEP and ILMC are ready to help you to apply this knowledge in practical situations. I should also say a few words about how the EnTA process relates to the other work of UNEP. The DTIE, based in Paris, regroups several Units concerned with sustainable industrial and urban development. The individual programmes of the Division include such diverse items as Cleaner Production, industrial accident prevention (APELL), safe chemicals management, urban technologies, freshwater management technologies, phase-out of ozone-depleting substances, more energy efficient processes and polices, among others. Together these allow industries, governments and civil societies to plan a better and more sustainable development path ahead. All of them have a technology component somewhere. The partners in this workshop do not see this as being a single event lasting a mere 4 days. This workshop is the beginning of a change in decision-making by you, and your colleagues in your own organizations. There may be a need to follow up this meeting with others in your country. All of us are committed to helping you apply this knowledge, and we will do what we can to assist you as you proceed. So let me once again thank our partners, especially the ILMC and the CDG, for their organisational and financial support, the Philippine Recyclers Inc. and the Government of the Philippines as generous hosts, UNCTAD and Tecnicas Reunidas as supporting organisations, our hard-working consultants and advisers, and others who have supported the idea, but cannot be here. Most especially, I thank all of you for your enthusiasm in coming here. I wish you hard work and a good output at the end. Finally, on behalf of the Executive Director of UNEP, Mr. Klaus Topfer, I thank the organizers and sponsors, and wish you all a very successful workshop.
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