Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – Green activists have demanded the government fine polluting firms that perform poorly under the Proper rating system, in accordance with the newly enacted environmental law.
According to activists, the new law is a policy the government must push to manage the deteriorating environment. They said regardless of the Proper rating system, polluters must be punished as a deterrent and to encourage "green" practice.
"The law must be applied to polluters with or without a Proper rating system," executive director of the Indonesian Environmental Forum Berry Furqon told The Jakarta Post on Friday. "The environment minister and the government would be deemed law violators if they did not enforce it," he said.
The Office of the State Minister for the Environment announced Thursday the result of the environmental performance ranking, or Proper rating system. Of 627 companies, 56 firms were rated as black and 130 were red.
Companies in the black category were firms that did nothing to manage hazardous waste's effect on air and water. Companies in this category were thought to have minimum corporate social responsibility. The red and red minus rates were given to companies that failed to meet minimum environmental standards.
Article 99 of the 2009 Environmental Protection and Management Law stipulates anyone who intentionally conducts activity that causes pollution exceeding water- and air-quality levels, will face a minimum three-year jail sentence, with a fine between Rp 3 billion (US$320,000) and Rp 10 billion (US$1 million).
State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar, who declined to take action against polluting companies, said the voluntary Proper rating system was a tool to encourage companies to improve their environmental impact rather than to penalize.
The Proper rating, first launched in 1995, ranks companies on a color scale. Gold is the highest, followed by green, blue, minus blue, red, minus red, and lastly, black. It assesses companies' compliance with environmental regulations and their pollution management such as the effect of hazardous waste on air and water.
The Proper rating did not assess environmental damage caused by mining companies.
Around 183 mining companies joined the Proper rating and only two firms were included in the black category. About 83 percent of mining companies received a green rating.
Executive director of the Mining Network Siti Maimunah said the Proper rating system gave mining companies a "green" image.
"We have long criticized the system's criteria used to examine companies," Siti said. "The green label will only give mining companies more access to bank credit."
Siti said the government needed to upgrade the criteria by better evaluating companies' impacts on the environment. "It does not make sense when companies expand their mining activities into protected forests just because they have received a green label under the ranking system," she said.
Siti said there was no reason the government should avoid imposing fines on excessive-polluting companies.
She also warned the law might encourage government officers and companies to involve themselves in power abuse in their efforts to receive a green rank. She said many banks required companies to possess a green rank to be eligible for bank loans.
Green activists were confused by the government's decision to award a gold label to publicly listed cement company, PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa, in Citeurup, for receiving a green rank for achieving zero pollution over the past three years.