Groups Give “Thumbs Up" to Non-Toxic and Climate-Friendly Industries

Quezon City. Civil society groups conveyed their unity to heightened efforts by the global community to promote strategies that will foster non-toxic, resource-efficient, climate-friendly and socially responsible businesses and industries.

The EcoWaste Coalition and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) issued a joint statement as delegates begin to converge in Pasay City for the International Conference on Green Industry in Asia that will take place from September 9 to 11.

The said conference is hosted by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in collaboration with the UN Industrial Development Organization, UN Environment Program and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific.

“With the greening of the industries, we can expect the integration of prevention, precaution, substitution, life cycle analysis, zero waste and, very importantly, public participation as key elements in the design and production of healthier and safer products and services,” said Manny Calonzo of both the EcoWaste Coalition and GAIA.

“In this era of toxic chemical economy and climate change, all stakeholders need to put their creative talents and resources together to ensure the necessary transition to clean production to conserve depleting resources and mitigate the impacts of a warming climate,” he said.

As defined by Clean Production Action (CPA), clean production is a way of designing products and manufacturing processes in harmony with natural ecological cycles. It aims to eliminate toxic wastes and inputs and ultimately promotes the judicious use of renewable energy and materials.

The EcoWaste Coalition and GAIA expressed high hopes that the conference will give due emphasis to easily and immediately implementable capacity building programs for decreased waste and toxic generation and increased resource efficiency by the industries.

The groups seek the adoption of zero waste as an essential strategy for resource conservation, toxic reduction and climate mitigation as it reduces the pressure on natural resource base, while preventing the formation of greenhouse gases in every step of the extraction, processing, shipment, consumption and disposal trail.

“We are confident that the delegates will be fully supportive of zero waste and support projects and technologies that will not weaken waste prevention, reduction, reuse, recycling and composting as well as undermine materials recovery and recycling jobs,” the groups stated.

The green industry conference will feature a host of expert speakers, including L. Hunter Lovins who co-authored with Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins the book “Creating the Next Industrial Revolution: Natural Capitalism.”

Natural capitalism, as differentiated from traditional capitalism, recognizes and assigns monetary value to natural resources and ecosystem services that make all economic activities possible, and advocates resource productivity as solution to environmental loss.

“Natural capitalism also redesigns industry on biological models that result in zero waste, shifts the economy from episodic acquisition of goods to the continual flow of value and service, and prudently invests in sustaining and expanding existing stores of natural capital,” the book says.