Sustainable Development Policy Institute

Sustainable Industrial Development / National Environmental Quality Standards

• Introduction
• Environmental Monitoring Program for Industries
• Objectives
• Self-Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART)
• Environmental Auditing (EA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• Memberships

Introduction

To meet the challenges of environment protection and pollution control in the country, Pakistan National Conservation Strategy (NCS) was developed in 1992, followed by Pakistan Environment Protection Act (PEPA) enacted in 1997.SDPI has been actively involved in both these major initiatives at the development stage as well as in their on-going implementation process. SDPI has been the secretariat for the Environmental Standards Committee (ESC) constituted by Pakistan Environmental Protection Council (PEPC). The Institute provided substantial support and assistance to the success of the consultative process among the stakeholders (government, industry and NGOs) through which regulations and guidelines were developed for the implementation of PEPA 1997. SDPI is also providing all possible technical support, for capacity building of the environmental protection agencies as well as the industry to implement and monitor compliance of several in-coming regulations for environmental protection and pollution control in the country. With focus on capacity building for sustainable industrial development, the on-going program activities are in environmental monitoring, national environmental quality standards (NEQS), self-monitoring and reporting, environmental audits, environmental impact assessments and hazardous wastes management including hospital wastes.

Environmental Monitoring Program for Industries 

Development of an environmental monitoring program for industries has been a salient feature and a priority action for SDPI under the area of Sustainable Industrial Development (SID). The need for a comprehensive environmental monitoring program has been recognized to fulfill the many requirements of industry, regulatory bodies and NGOs. Without a proper and systematic environmental monitoring program in place, no environmental policy is likely to be successful, be it the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) or adaptation of cleaner technologies for pollution control.

Objectives

Sustainable Industrial Development envisages four principle objectives for the environmental monitoring program: 

1. to provide support to Government/Federal EPA for developing monitoring framework and requirements for the industry and establishment of standard monitoring procedures and reporting formats 
2. to provide assistance to industry through information dissemination and training in environmental monitoring 
3. emission and effluent measurement from selected industrial units/industrial estates 
4. support for creating and maintaining a database on pollutant loads from individual industries throughout the country. 

Self-Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART)

SDPI, on the request of the Environment Protection Agencies (EPAs), developed a software called Self Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) for industries. This initiative was taken to support the efforts of the government in the implementation of the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS), environmental protection and pollution control in the country.

SMART, based on the self monitoring and reporting guidelines developed by SDPI, will facilitate the process of recording and transmitting environmental data by industries. The EPAs will use the software to receive, analyse and check for compliance environmental data sent by industries. SMART has been developed to assist the industries in generating their industrial emission report electronically and transmitting the same to Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs). SMART can also help develop national database and statistical analyses of the same to give valuable baseline data for consideration in developing national policies for environment protection and pollution control in the country. Fifty industries from all over Pakistan volunteered to install SMART for testing during a recent pilot phase demonstration of the software. The government introducd the self monitoring and reporting through SMART for the entire industrial sector in the country from March 2006.

Environmental Auditing (EA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

SDPI has laid strong emphasis on capacity development in environmental auditing (EA) and environmental impact assessment (EIA). Consequently, training courses have been designed and organized on EA and EIA for both public and private sectors and NGOs.

In the first ever national conference on Environmental Auditing, organized by SDPI, draft guidelines on Environmental Audit Standard and Practice in Pakistan, Environmental Audit Qualification Criteria and Auditors Certification Process were presented and discussed. 

Memberships

SDPI is a member of the:

• National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP): Sub-Committee on Environmental Governance and Policy Coordination, Ministry of Environment, Islamabad, GoP
• National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) Sub-Program on Air Pollution Control, Ministry of Environment, Islamabad, GoP
• Sub-Committee on Environmental Governance and Policy Coordination: National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP), Ministry of Environment, Islamabad, GoP
• Executive Committee, World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Federal Forestry Board, GoP
• 2002-present, Member, National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS) Committee, Ministry of Environment, Islamabad, GoP
• Secretariat for National Environmental Quality Standards Implementation Committee (NEQS-IC)
• International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN)
• Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities CAT/Net
• Global Alliance for Incineration Alternatives (GAIA)
  
  

Please contact Dr Mahmood A. Khwaja (Khwaja@sdpi.org) for further details and information on the Sustainable Industrial Development program.