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Second Eco-Baltic
Troy Davis's Plenary Intervention at By Troy Davis, Executive Director of INEM
Programme Implementation Task Force 9
(PITF9),
Jurata, Latvia
2 October 1996
Programme Implementation Taskforce of HELCOM
Thank you Mr. Chairman, Thank you for the opportunity
to address this meeting of PITF 9. We would like to take the opportunity to present the latest information on the Eco-Baltic process and the Second Eco-Baltic conference, planned for next October in Gdansk during that city's
millennium. The Eco-Baltic process is part of our ongoing activities to introduce and implement the concept of integrated EM in the business sector of the region. So far, we have member or affiliated organizations in 6
countries around the Baltic Sea. Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the 3 Baltic States. We have also partners in the remaining countries who are working to establish local or national networks to promote EM. As you
may know, we have made a proposal to include EM in the revised JCP given recent developments of recent years. We would be very happy to make any contributions which PITF or the HELCOM Secretariat may wish to the discussion
concerning the JCP at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. Concerning the 2 EB, we have just finished yesterday the first meeting of our IPAG in Gdansk, which was attended by several participants of this
meeting. I will not give you a full account but just an overview of the present status. The 2 EB will take place from 9-11 October 1997 in Gdansk, and is part of the official programme of the Millennium celebrations.
The focus of the conference will be on companies. This will be a change from the first EB where the focus was more on the partnerships between companies and other sectors of society. The main goal is to contribute to the process of
harmonization of the countries of the Southern Baltic with European standards through the facilitation of the fulfilment or compliance by industry of international standards. Experience shows that an integrated approach which we
define as EM and which includes EMS, EA, EL, CP etc., is the cheapest and most sustainable way of improving the environmental performance of industry. The focus of the conference will be mostly on the implementation of the EMAS,
ISO 14000 standards and CP, together with practical case studies. Here I would like to thank HELCOM for the contribution it made to the great success of the first EB, which was held in Lübeck in March 1995, during which 400
participants of 24 countries participated. The HELCOM Secretariat organized several workshops. The output were the so-called Lübeck Commitments, which were over 100 individual commitments made by participants to improve their
environmental performance. HELCOM was thus one of the two Major Partners of the first EB together with the BCCA. We are very happy that HELCOM, as well as BCCA, has accepted the invitation to once again be a Major Partner
of Eco-Baltic. That is why the Helcom Secretariat was represented yesterday at the meeting of the IPAG. Other important partners of the first EB were the BTC, the UBC as well as the CRE represented here by my neighbour. Also, we
are happy to report that we obtained the endorsement of three international organizations: UNEP, UNIDO and the ISO, who are close partners of INEM in other activities and in other regions. Major funders were the
European Commission, a large German Foundation and the Finnish Ministry of the Environment. I have here a draft concept which has not yet been updated since I came here immediately after the meeting yesterday, but in any case, we
will send to all of you updated information when it is ready. I also have some information here for all those interested about the first EB and about our activities in general and about our philosophy of integrated EM
end of formal intervention under Agenda item 2.
Troy Davis's contribution in discussion under agenda item 4 (b), PITF 9 So far, agriculture has been treated independently of industry. But we know that there is much faster progress in reducing emissions from industry than from agriculture. A good example
is Denmark where companies have tremendously improved but farmers haven't. Maybe we should introduce a similar type of system as exists in the UN FCCC called JI, or now AIJ, but with the twist that industry would get credit for the
improvement that it would get if assisting farmers. This is especially interesting for companies which have reduced their emissions to the point that the law of diminishing return takes hold. This mechanism could also be used
for large companies assisting smaller companies in the same basin or along the same river. This would be a variant of the bubble concept invented by the US EPA. Another element to consider for agriculture are the potential
implication of the CAP of the EU. The CAP is not sustainable as is and it would be even less sustainable if extended as is to the countries who have signed association agreements. Maybe the updated JCP should develop a
different model and give a signal for a real reform of the CAP. What should happen is not that Polish farmers should in the future use as much chemicals as French farmers, but that French farmers use as little as Polish farmers
today. In this case, the Southern Baltic countries could be a model for EU countries! After listening and reading documents about hot spots and reports, it seems many problems in the South-western Baltics are due to
military installations. Maybe it would be a good idea to include in the updating process NATO which has spent a lot of resources in trying to solve these kind of environmental problems. A way to accelerate know-how transfer
would be to do more of the kind of twinning as Norway has presented between Oslo Water Works and Eesti Veewark. Such twinning between companies is a way to provide psychological motivation for the real transfer of
know-how. We are trying to do this not in the Baltic context but e.g. between the National Railway of Germany and the National Railway of Hungary, which are not in competition. For example, the Swedish Railway could
"adopt" their Latvian counterpart. Commenting on the remarks of Mr. Hindström about institutional strengthening, we believe it is important not only to strengthen administrative bodies, but also business institutions,
and especially those business institutions which focus on improving the management of companies. Better management is necessary to be able to absorb other types of improvements. On PA &EE, one way to increase PA might
be to determine simple catchy indicators of success of the JCP to communicate to the general public. These could form a sort of scoreboard. E.g. there could literally be a large scoreboard in all major cities around the Baltic Sea
giving the present status of the indicators. There could be also be a big yearly presentation with the media informing of the progress over the last year. HELCOM could create a competition between PR agencies in the Baltic
Sea to come up with such catchy "tunes". There could also be cartoon characters created to spread the message broadly through television:, e.g. Balty Cod, Gully Seagull and Greenbear. If the JCP fails to consider the
implications of the CAP, and assumes a business as usual scenario, then it will have failed as showing the way to sustainability in the Baltic region. Also, HELCOM would miss a golden opportunity to set the tone and keep the
lead in setting the agenda for the region. It is probable that some alert official writing the Baltic Agenda 21 would then include it in that document, and thus highlight a basic deficiency of HELCOM. Substantially speaking, the
goal maybe should be to use the opportunity of agricultural restructuring to create high value low impact sustainable/organic agriculture on a large scale.
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