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Environmental Certification, Audit and Standardization
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8. ENVIRONMENTAL CERTIFICATION, AUDIT AND STANDARDIZATION
The national strategy of sustainable development of the Republic of Belarus determines as a factor of sustainable development the implementation of best environment management practices balancing the economic development with environmental needs with consideration of the interests of future generations.
The need to engage enterprises in the activities ensuring the environmental safety in Belarus is recognized at a state level, to which testify the joint decision of the Environmental Ministry and State Standardization Committee of the Republic of Belarus about the establishment of Environmental Certification Subsystem (Order # 179/130 of June 15, 1998).
A package of documents providing for the system of environmental certification has been developed in order to carry out voluntary environmental certification of products and production in compliance with the following legislation: the laws of the Republic of Belarus “On environmental protection”, “On protection of consumers’ rights”, “On certification of products, works and services”; Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus “On the approval of the Regulations of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection” # 475 of May 13, 1997 and “On the approval of the Regulations of the State Standardization, Meteorology and Certification Committee of the Republic of Belarus” # 321 of April 11, 1997; state standard of the Republic of Belarus of January 5, 1996 “The national certification system of the Republic of Belarus. General provisions”.
A state policy of sustainable water use that would prescribe the use of economic and administrative tools regulating the impacts on water resources, in particular the environmental certification of water-related economic activities, is needed to increase the efficiency of state water management system on the basis of the basin principle.
Serious damage is caused to the water resource of Belarus as a result of contradiction between the interests of company executives to maximize their incomes at the expense of environment and the effort taken by the state to protect the environment including water resources. The environmental certification of water use and of environmental management systems will help eliminate this contradiction much better than other environmental measures provided for in the Water Code of Belarus.
Environmental audit is the examination of premises, technologies and facilities of an enterprise the main objective of which is to determine the state of the natural components (air, soil, surface and ground water, flora and fauna) and general trends in their state in order to identify the means and methods to reduce pollution.
Environmental audit helps timely identify the problems and reduce future risks. The results of the environmental audit serve the basis for the assessment of the environmental state of the subject enterprise and for recommendations for corrective measures. Environmental audit is the necessity for the enterprises put on privatization sale.
To ensure that all of the above measures are working, it is necessary to complement the existing practice of environmental tax with new standards and methods, that is to develop a package of standard-setting materials including:
- a regulation governing the environmental audit of water consuming organizations;
- a methodology of environmental audit of water consuming organizations;
- a in instruction on procedures of environmental examination of water consuming organizations, etc.
The developed standard-setting and methodological documents and the environmental audit of enterprises will regulate the issues of compliance of water consuming organizations with the requirements of environmental legislation and in such a way to insure the improvement of the current environmental situation.
The environmental standardization consist in the establishment of standards for the environmental control, assessment of environmental impact of various substances, and technical specifications equipment used to control and prevent hazardous emissions in the environment.
In the developed countries, environmental standardization is viewed as the most effective tool of state policy for the rehabilitation of human habitat and energy-saving and efficient use of the natural environment.
The environmental activities in Belarus are regulated by the interstate standards (the state standards of the former USSR) and the appropriate national standards. However national system of environmental standards lacks the standards of control over water quality. That is why, the approved by the Environmental Ministry “List of measuring methodologies allowed for use at the environmental control laboratories of manufacturing enterprises and organizations of the Republic of Belarus” is used as a standard-setting document. This is a list of methodologies aimed to identify the polluting components of natural and waste waters.
In the near future, it is necessary to analyze whether the standard methods of control used in Belarus comply with the international standards and identify the scope of urgent standardization and later on to develop a Unified Environmental Standardization System.
Alongside with the legislative improvements it is essential to continue working on the standard-setting and methodological documents regulating various uses of natural resources and environmental protection, in particular the improvement of the standards and criteria of water quality and environmental certification.
As for the standardization it is necessary to develop a package of standard-setting and methodological documents that will
- establish maximum allowable concentrations of pollutants in water bodies with consideration of local conditions;
- develop methods of calculation of maximum allowable pollutant discharges;
- establish standards, rules and methods of the efficient use of water resources;
- justify the rules of operations that utilizing water resources;
- prevent the adverse effect of polluted water on the environment;
- develop list of requirements for the equipment, instruments and facilities of control and protection of water resources from pollution;
- set the rules of land and water organization that ensuring a comprehensive functioning of natural bodies;
- identify the parameters characterizing the state of water bodies.
As for the environmental audit, it is necessary to
- produce a package of standard-setting and methodological documents regulating the process of environmental audit, including regulation of environmental audit in water management, methodology of environmental audit of water consuming organizations, instruction on procedures of environmental examination of water consuming enterprises, etc.
As for the certification of the systems of drinking water supply, it is necessary to:
- establish a national standard of drinking bottled water or adopt the Russian standard for the purposes of certification of drinking bottled and other water subject to compulsory certification;
- in the filed of water management certification, develop a set of requirements, the compliance with which is to be certified;
- in the field of environmental certification of information products, it is necessary to develop standard-setting and methodological documents providing for this type of certification;
- work out the rules according to which the environmental requirements are included in production standards;
- work out a package of standard-setting and methodological documents regulating water protection activities;
- work out a package of standard-setting and methodological documents regulating the environmental certification of products in the process of environmental marking.
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