Ministry to prescribe new emission levels

INDUSTRIES and manufacturing companies in the country will soon be compelled to cut their individual emissions to levels to be prescribed by the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology.


This follows moves by the ministry to specify the amount of gas that a manufacturing company in the country can emit into the environment.

The Environment Science and Technology Minister, Ms Sherry Ayitey, who gave the hint in Accra when she chaired the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI)-Unilever Business Luncheon said, “The ministry will soon be setting standards for gas emissions by industries operating in the country.”

The luncheon, which is an initiative by both the AGI and Unilever, had the theme: ‘Growing sustainably, living sustainably’ and was aimed a throwing more light on the need for industries to adopt sustainable business models in their respective dealings.

According to Ms Ayitey, the setting of standards for gas emission was expected to help address the reckless nature in which some manufacturing industries in the country were emitting gases despite the negative consequences on the environment and climate change in general.

Ms Ayitey also called on industries, particularly manufacturing companies whose activities involve gas emissions, to adopt modern technologies that had the tendency of reducing gas emissions while they await the ministry’s standards on gas emissions.

She gave hints of the ministry’s intentions to submit before Parliament a Land Use Planning Bill that would ensure proper planning of cities and buildings in the country.

All these, she said, were aimed at sustaining the environment so as to preserve it for future generations.

Meanwhile, the AGI has welcomed the introduction of the gas emission standards.

This is a laudable idea that should be supported by all,” the Vice-president of the AGI’s large-scale sector, Dr George Dawson-Ahmoah, told the Daily Graphic in an interview.

“We are wondering what additional standards the ministry is going to set since we already have a lot of these standards in place. The problem is not about the laws or standards, but it is about enforcement,” he said. He, however, admitted that industries were not complying with all regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Managing Director of Unilever West Africa, Mr David Mureithi, who presented a paper on ‘Environmental Sustainability, A must or a nice to have?’ noted that issues of corporate responsibilities had gone beyond “giving small amounts of companies’ profits to communities in the name of CSR.

“We all have to adopt sustainable measures that will save the environment from any dangers,” he added.

According to him, efforts by Unilever Global to reduce plastics in its products were giving the company about 15 million euros a year. He, therefore, called on corporate Ghana “not to see issues of environmental sustainability as being costly to practise. It saves money in the long run.”

He also said Unilever Ghana was currently investing in a gas plant as it intended to switch from its current oil manufacturing plant to a gas one.

The programme also had presentations from the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing; Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the Environmental Protection Agency and the AGI’s President.