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By Kevin Munn
A recent study on VIs by the Commission reveals a large number of environmental VIs within the Member States.41 These are summarized below, with VIs which are applicable to the chemicals industry highlighted. As all the nations below have agreements on the reduction/elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) under the Montreal Protocol, this fact is not repeated for all the national summaries below, nor for the US, Canadian and Dutch summaries which follow.
Belgium: Fourteen VIs have been concluded since the late 1980s.
Denmark: Sixteen agreements have been concluded since 1987. Those which impact the chemical industry include the phase-out of specific substances (e.g. certain organic solvents, volatile organic compounds) and clean-up of contaminated sites.
Germany: The German VIs are normally unilateral declarations of intent by industry. As such, they are not cooperative agreements with the Government per se but in reality they are often the outcome of intense discussions with the competent ministries and are recognized in an informal way. Some 80 declarations have been issued since the late 1970s. The chemical industry is a party to some of these commitments: details were not available but it appears that these concern reductions in fugitive emissions.
Spain: Six VIs have been issued in Spain. While none of these were reported to have a major effect on the chemical industry, pending VIs would cover solvents, chlorine products and waste water in general. Financial incentives are also being considered within the context of these future agreements.
France: VIs for environmental protection date back to 1971 in France, when the Ministry of Environment and the Cement Industry concluded the first French VI. Today, about 20 VIs exist. Mention is made of an agreement on chemical industry emissions, but details were not available.
Ireland: One VI was reported to be concluded in Ireland, on packaging waste recovery and recycling.
Italy: Eleven VIs have been concluded in Italy.
Luxembourg: Five VIs were reported to be active in Luxembourg, with one of these covering hazardous wastes.
Austria: Twenty-five agreements are in place in Austria. These are of two types; unilateral industry declarations (see Germany) and industry-government cooperative initiatives. The former are more common.
Portugal: Ten agreements have been reached in Portugal, with more reportedly under development.
Finland: The exact number of VIs in Finland was not reported, though considerable progress appears to have been made with numerous sectors.
Sweden: Thirteen agreements have been concluded. Most take the form of letters of intent from industry, and thus seem to be in line with the German and Austrian models.
UK: Eight VIs have been concluded since the early 1970s. Specific agreements with the chemical industry were not detailed.
In March 1994, a challenge was issued to Canadian industries and government departments by the Accelerated Reduction/Elimination of Toxics (ARET) Committee to take voluntary action to achieve, by the year 2000, a 90 per cent reduction in releases of persistent bio-accumulative toxics, as well as a 50 per cent reduction in releases of other ARET substances. ARET covers 117 chemical substances meeting a consensus classification as toxic, persistent and/or bio-accumulative.
The ARET process is potentially less costly than the traditional regulatory process for both government and industry, and quicker to achieve results. Equally important, it promotes cooperation between governments, industry and other stakeholders in dealing with those toxic chemicals that represent some of the worst health and environmental threats.
ARET complements existing environmental protection regulations. Although there is broad support for voluntary programmes, mandatory regulations are a valuable and important component of government environmental protection strategies to achieve sustainable development gains.
Independent evaluation of the ARET approach supports and reinforces the value of voluntary action in combination with regulatory measures.
Results. Since ARET's inception in 1994, the programme has grown to 278 facilities from eight major industrial sectors representing over 40 per cent of Canada's total industrial production. The ARET participants have developed action plans and specific commitments for reduction. These commitments and action plans are all publicly available.
Results to date show that ARET participants have made significant progress toward the goals committed to in their action plans. The 278 participating facilities have reduced toxic substance emissions by 49 per cent from base year levels to December 1995. These decreases have been mainly achieved through ARET. Industry has committed to make further reductions in the future. If these are met, a total reduction of 72 per cent of toxic emissions will have been attained by the year 2000.
Comments on the chemical industry. In reporting specifically on the chemical sector, Environment Canada notes:
The CCPA is well represented in ARET. While 97 per cent of CCPA's member companies are participating, virtually all of the chemical manufacturing sector's production is captured by these firms. As of 1995, the industry had reduced its ARET emissions by 52 per cent of base-year levels and is on target for a 72 per cent overall reduction.
The CCPA's Responsible Care verification teams add credibility in that they confirm that ethical and management systems are in place to enable the results, such as those reported in ARET, to be achieved. The four-person teams ... are wholly independent of the companies being verified. The teams prepare a report on their findings for public, employee and peer scrutiny.
Considering it a separate sector, Environment Canada also summarize results for the Canadian Manufacturers of Chemical Specialties Association (CMCS) members:
Sixty-eight per cent of the CMCS companies participate or support the ARET initiative. The chemical specialties industry has set itself an overall target of 82 per cent reduction of ARET substances from base-year levels. From base year to 1995, participating companies reduced their emissions by 27 per cent. Three companies (of approximately 260 participants) account for 94 per cent of the sector's reductions. Crown Cork and Seal Canada (one of the three companies) has reaped additional benefits such as product cost reductions and improved employee health and safety.
Trade union comments on ARET.45 The following opinions and observations on ARET were supplied by CEP: "Several years ago, the federal Government in Canada initiated the ARET project. There was initial participation by labour and environmental groups, along with government and industry."
Unfortunately, no consensus was ever reached on whether the identified substances would be restricted, banned, subject to regulatory limits, or whatever. As a result, after the list of target substances was identified, environmental groups and labour left the ARET's table in protest of the insistence by industry (and governments) that the ARET's list be considered a "voluntary challenge" to meet specified limits, only.
Related to VIs is the EPA policy which allows companies to discover, prevent and correct environmental violations at their facilities and to receive lower or no penalties for those violations. The policy states that when violations are found either through voluntary audits or efforts that reflect the company's "due diligence", and are promptly disclosed and expeditiously corrected, EPA will not seek fines or criminal prosecutions for those violations.46
The EPA 33/50 programme 47 History. The 33/50 programme relies on the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to identify potential participants and to assess the success of the programme. TRI, which existed before the 33/50 programme, is a national inventory of industrial toxic chemical releases and transfers reported to the Government by business on a yearly basis as required by law.
The 33/50 programme began in the late 1980s with high-level meetings held to discuss ways in which business might reduce TRI-reported releases. These meetings included: senior EPA officials, the American Paper Institute, chief executives of major corporations, members of the transportation sector, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, environmental non-profit organizations, the American Petroleum Institute. Discussions focused on going beyond the TRI requirement of reporting releases. The group decided to use the release information as a starting-point for encouraging release reduction, and, therefore, pollution prevention. During these meetings the structure of the 33/50 programme was crafted. After concerns of all participants were addressed, the programme was formally announced in February 1991.
The goals set were (1) to reduce 17 TRI pollutants by 33 per cent by 1992, and (2) to reduce 17 TRI pollutants by 50 per cent by 1995. The 17 chemicals targeted by the 33/50 programme are "high priority" chemicals, so named by EPA after the Agency reviewed the TRI chemicals for relative toxicities, volumes of use, and the potential for reductions through pollution prevention.
Company participation. Companies that report using or releasing one or more of the 17 chemicals listed above have been encouraged by EPA to consider joining the 33/50 programme. Participation is simple: a company submits a letter to EPA stating the intention to participate and outlining its reduction targets and strategies. The 33/50 programme now includes 1,300 parent companies operating about 6,000 facilities in the US. Twenty company profiles are available to date with more planned. These profiles summarize experiences businesses have had with the 33/50 programme. The documents outline the implementation of the 33/50 programme at each company, with an emphasis on benefits of participation and the achievements of each company in reducing their priority chemical releases and transfers.
Benefits of participation. Formal Certificates of Appreciation are issued by EPA to each company participating in the 33/50 programme. Companies are known to use certificates in launching new product lines or obtaining vendor selection preference. Other public recognition of 33/50 programme companies is provided in annual TRI data releases, progress reports, regular press releases, and goal achievement events.
Progress. The 33 per cent goal was met by participating companies one year early -- 1991. The 1993 reports from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) show 33/50 programme companies reducing toxic emissions at three times the rate of other companies. This suggests that voluntary direct action on the part of industry can outpace prescriptive regulation in terms of environmental results. Many companies have reported that their reduction efforts for the 33/50 programme have actually saved money for the company.
The 33/50 programme sets national priorities for reducing toxic chemical emissions and uses TRI to measure results directly -- 744 million pounds of pollution reduced in 1993. This is a 46 per cent reduction in toxic releases and transfers, just 4 per cent short of the 1995 goal of a 50 per cent reduction from the 1988 TRI baseline.
The 33/50 programme establishes partnerships between government and industry that change ways of conducting business. It is the philosophy of the 33/50 programme to emphasize collaboration over confrontation wherever possible, recognizing that the final aim of the activities is environmental improvement.
Future. EPA plans to evaluate the original five-year 33/50 programme experiment, summarize lessons learned by both government and industry, and package the 33/50 programme on CD-ROM for distribution to states, cities, and organizations interested in adapting the 33/50 programme concept to their own local circumstances.
The EPA XL projects48 History. President Clinton created the XL programmes with his 16 March 1995 Reinventing Environmental Regulation Initiative. The notice defining the XL programme made clear that an "important factor" in EPA's approval of projects is, "the extent to which project proponents have sought and achieved the support of parties that have a stake in the environmental impacts of the project". Stakeholders were defined as including "communities near the project, local or state governments, businesses, environmental and other public interest groups, or other similar entities".
What are XL projects? XL projects are real world tests of innovative strategies that achieve cleaner and cheaper results than conventional regulatory approaches would achieve. Each project will involve the granting of regulatory flexibility by EPA in exchange for commitments by a regulated entity to achieve better environmental results than would have been attained through full compliance with regulations. EPA has set a goal of implementing 50 pilot projects in four categories: XL projects for facilities, sectors, government agencies, and communities. Stakeholder involvement is also important to EPA in this process. As such, proposals developed with local governments, environmental groups, and citizens' organizations will be viewed favourably.
Enforcement. Certain key principles contained in the Operating Principles for the Common Sense Initiative memorandum bear repeating in this context: the application of these principles generally means that where information about a violation is obtained as a result of participation in XL, a range of mitigated enforcement responses -- including the exercise of enforcement discretion not to pursue the violation -- is generally an appropriate manner in which to recognize the interest of XL participants and the public interest in promoting project XL, and to acknowledge the good faith of the project sponsor's participation in project XL. However, for those violations which are not discovered as a result of XL participation, or which come to light through means wholly apart from a facility's XL participation, the Agency will evaluate the appropriateness of any response in accordance with applicable Agency enforcement response policy(s), without regard to the participant's involvement in XL. Nevertheless, the fact of a project sponsor's participation in project XL may be considered a relevant factor for mitigating penalties in the event a formal enforcement action is taken for such violation(s).
40 G. Williams, "Lightening the legislative load", in European Chemical News
41 CEC, On environmental agreements report No. COM(96) 561, 27 Nov. 1996, Brussels.
42 M. Potier, "Agreement on the environment", in The OECD Observer, No. 189, Aug.-Sep. 1994.
43 Environment Canada, Environment Canada action plan, Internet address: http://www.arraydev.com/ecbp/english/chapter2.html
44 Environment Canada, Environment Leaders 2 - Accelerated reduction/elimination of toxics (ARET) progress report, Han. 1997, Ottawa. Also available at Internet address: http://www.doe.ca .
45 Communiqué from B. Kohler to K. Munn, 7 Jan. 1997.
46 C&EN,EPA publishes final policy on voluntary environmental audits 1 Jan. 1996, p. 15 -- also US Federal Register, 22 Dec. 1995, p. 66706.
47 EPA, EPA's 33/50 programme, Internet address: http://es/inel.gov/partners/3350/3350.html .
48 EPA, About XL, Internet address: http://133.223.29.233/xl_home/xl_about.html
