Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is planning to implement its own ecolabeling measures for domestic manufactured and agricultural products starting in June next year following an agreement signed on Nov. 19, a senior government official says.

Masnellyarti Hilman, the deputy for the environmental management policies at the Ministry of the Environment, said last week that a consortium consisting of her ministry, the Department of Industry and Trade, the National Standardization Agency (BSN), the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI), the Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute (LEI), certification agencies, industry associations, and environmental NGOs had agreed upon a standard that would be used to certify and label environmentally friendly products.

"The standard is an Indonesian National Standard (SNI) formulated by the BSN," Masnellyarti said.

Details of the ecolabeling measures remained unclear, with Masnellyarti saying only that the measures were based on the international standard, the ISO 14000, which specifically deals with the environment.

The ISO 14000 standard on environmental management systems defines environmentally friendly products as those that take into accounts biodegradability, recyclability, toxicity, resource consumption, and nature conservancy in their entire process of production, distribution and consumption.

The consortium, according to Masnellyarti, agreed that the competent certification agencies, including those owned by manufacturing companies, could issue ecolabeling certificates.

"This is to simplify things and widen access for manufacturers who want their products ecolabeled," Masnellyarti said, adding that ecolabeling was voluntary rather than obligatory.

To maintain the independence and transparency of certification agencies, however, the government had decided that the National Accreditation Commission (KAN), a unit of the BSN, would act as the custodian.

"KAN will also supervise the agencies in reviewing ecolabeled products every year. If a product is found to no longer be environmentally friendly, the agency must withdraw its certification," Masnellyarti said.

Concerning the voluntary nature of the ecolabeling scheme, Masnellyarti admitted that this was because many manufacturers still felt that ecolabeling was an additional cost in their production process, even though, in fact, many international trade practices now require ecolabeling.

The government, however, had prepared an incentive plan for small and medium enterprises (SME) to participate in the scheme, Masnellyarti said, while urging major producers, especially of Indonesia's main export products such textiles, pulp, and leather products, to participate as well.

Until now, only Indonesian wood product manufacturers have introduced ecolabeling, organized by the LEI, to help them pass the requirements imposed by most developed countries.

Meanwhile, in anticipating next year's deadline for the putting in place of the scheme, the consortium holding a design competition for its logo which will run from now until January, with a Rp 7.5 million (US$ 882) prize for the winner.