Government▼Watch Protecting Palestine The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are threatened by urgent environmental problems, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The environment ministers attending UNEP’s Governing Council meeting in Nairobi in February, including those from the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, agreed to 130 recommendations to improve the situation.
problems are adding to existing pressures on the environment, which include the rapidly rising population, and global environmental trends, such as desertification and climate change. Haavisto’s report recommends reviving the presently defunct Joint Environmental Experts Committee, first established in the 1990s to bring together high-level environmental scientists. This committee’s first priority should be to identify environmental hot spots and plan remedial actions
Figure Not Available for Use on the Web
Military actions have destroyed infrastructure such as sewage systems and water supplies, according to a report by Pekka Haavisto, the former Finnish Minister of Environment and Development Cooperation, who last October led a mission to assess the state of the environment in the region. The ongoing conflict has also released hazardous materials, such as asbestos from roof tiles, while curfews and roadblocks have prevented people from using landfills, according to Haavisto. “There is no proper management of landfills, no protection of groundwaters, and sewage is flowing directly to the Mediterranean,” Haavisto wrote in a report for UNEP’s Post Conflict Assessment Unit. These © 2003 American Chemical Society
with a clear schedule. Other recommendations include implementing water-saving strategies; repairing cesspits to reduce contamination of underground water supplies; constructing wastewater treatment plants; and establishing regional solid waste authorities. UNEP Executive Director Klaus Töpfer said he believes that with UNEP as an impartial moderator, Israel and the Palestinian Authority will work together to solve the most pressing environmental problems. Haavisto is confident that both sides will cooperate. “They understand that environmental cooperation over the border is a must,” he says. There is already an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority to keep water issues out of the conflict. Haavisto says he would like this “out-of-conflict thinking” to extend to all environmental topics. The report Desk Study of the Environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is available at www.unep. org/GoverningBodies/GC22/ Document/INF-31-WebOPT.pdf. MARIA BURKE
ISO takes stab at social responsibility In response to a growing consumer push for greener products and services, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is mulling over the establishment of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) management system standard. CSR means different things to different people, as evidenced by the wide array of ongoing initiatives by governments, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations that cover everything from reporting and verification standards to codes of conduct and performance standards. What most definitions of the concept have in common, however, is that they emphasize the interrelationship among the environmental, economic, and social impacts of an organization’s activities, according to ISO documents. Because of the vast number and varying quality of these CSR initiatives, “many organizations are looking to ISO for some sort of formal statement on how you would do this type of thing,” says Michael Smith, ISO’s director of standards. ISO is the premier global standards setting body and has strengths in management system standards. It is best known for its ISO 9000 quality and ISO 14000 environmental management series, notes Allen White, cofounder and former head of the Global Reporting Initiative, an independent institution working to devel-
MAY 1, 2003 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 171 A
op globally applicable sustainability reporting guidelines. These standards have helped to raise the bar in terms of what companies do to enhance the quality of their products and services, as well as minimize adverse effects on the environment. Although the organization has not yet committed to pursuing a CSR standard, it has established an international strategic advisory group (SAG), composed of representatives from the business, regulatory, trade union, and consumer sectors, to help determine whether ISO is the right body to take this on, according to Smith. A key factor in this exercise will be for ISO to define a niche for itself that is complementary to the other efforts, says White, an SAG participant. Because the organization’s expertise is firmly rooted in the physical and engineering sciences, not the softer, social science side of management systems, ISO doesn’t have credibility among all the groups involved with CSR, especially consumers, White explains. To gain this credibility and not step on anyone’s toes, ISO will have to conduct a very sound, thoughtful, multistakeholder process throughout this standard-setting process and limit its efforts to an internal management system. “To move into the world of things like verification of corporate sustainability reports and development of indicators for measuring corporate governance, anticorruption and bribery policies, compliance with international labor standards, and the quality of corporations’ biodiversity programs is far afield from anything ISO has done before,” White says. However, ISO could make a positive contribution, as long as the organization stays focused on its particular strength. Such a standard should look and feel a lot like the ISO 14000 series, providing a map of CSR elements, describing initiatives and activities that fall under each of those, and explaining links between the various CSR components, he adds. In mid-March, ISO’s council gave the go-ahead to proceed with SAG recommendations for a technical report surveying all CSR work to date. Smith estimates its completion by the end of this year, with a justification study following on whether or not an ISO standard would have value. KRIS CHRISTEN 172 A ■ ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / MAY 1, 2003
