As spelt out in the 2005 budget speech, the government has established the economy, the environment and education as the three pillars of its activity.
In the same budget speech, the Prime Minister stated “the progress of a country cannot be measured only in financial terms but also in terms of the quality of life. In order to ensure the quality of life and to make our place even more beautiful, together with our competitiveness, we must also improve our environment”.
Today, a growing number of consumers are concerned not only with the quality of the products they buy, but also with the environmental friendliness of those products; such as the type of packaging, energy efficiency, recyclability and biodegradability. Besides that, people are becoming more aware of the environmental friendliness of the production processes used to make the products and with the environmental image of the manufacturer.
On the other hand, the majority of consumers are not yet ready to pay a premium for a better demonstrated environmentally friendly product over another, when all other things – product quality, serviceability, and price are roughly equal. However, a large number of consumers today tend to prefer the products of what they perceive as being more environmentally friendly.
Preference for the products from producers that are known to practice good environmental management is a recognised trend everywhere. Moreover, there are sizeable niche markets that do pay premium prices for environmentally friendly products, and a case in point is organic agricultural products. Since the Malta Standards Authority started certifying organic products, all those certified are fairing so well that they have declared the demand they have for their products outweighs their supply. So far seven producers of organic products have been certified in line with EU regulations by MSA.
Nowadays, everybody agrees there is a strong connection between competitiveness and the environment. As a matter of fact, competitiveness and the environment are considered by many as two sides of the same coin. The consultation document National Reform Programme, which my ministry published last month and which provides the direction that Malta will be following to meet the re-focused Lisbon Strategy, proposes a number of environmental challenges and scenarios where progress can be made to improve Malta’s competitiveness.
A project, which was recently launched by the Malta Standards Authority, not only fits very well in the measures being taken by the government, but also is the first initiative in recent years where the emphasis is being directly targeted on economic operators.
Eco-labelling and environmental management systems such as EMAS and ISO 14001 are valuable tools in achieving improvement and contributing to overall national environmental performance. Benefits stemming from eco-label certification and the implementation of an EMS in an organisation can be numerous.
Some of these are, reduced resource consumption, which provides financial returns, a better public image, reduced risk of non-compliance, and positive market response. Unfortunately, so far there are no EU eco-label certified products or services in Malta. On the other hand, during the past years the EU eco-label scheme for tourist accommodation had the largest growth in the EU Mediterranean countries, our direct competitors, among the 23 products/services schemes available. The number of certified EMS organisations in Malta is still very low compared to other countries .
I hope that through this new initiative by the MSA more organisations will implement an EMS, and we will also see the first products/services obtaining the EU eco-label certificate. We are also working so the Malta Standards Authority introduces certification to ISO 14001 next year and this will definitely facilitate further certification across the Maltese Islands.
Censu Galea is Competitiveness and Communications Minister