SWITCH-Asia achieves EU’s set target successfully

With a view of promoting Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the food and beverage industry, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce implemented a special project, SWITCH-Asia, funded by the European Union in 2009, which was successfully completed in end 2012.

Emphasising on the triple bottom line, the project trained more than 500 enterprises in SCP, out of which close to 100 enterprises have already achieved the set target and 200 more in the process, shifting their business to the next level.

More than 50% of the enterprises in Sri Lanka fall into the SME category and make a significant contribution to the industrial output of Sri Lanka. The training program was mainly designed to address the technical aspect of the compliance in both sustainable consumption and production.

The SMEs under the project were able reduce material consumption, water consumption, emissions, effluents and increase the percentage and volume of water recycled and reused, improve workforce quality and thereby increase revenue and profits. Sharing his views on the project, Project Director Prema Cooray said: “Along with both our international and local partners, we worked tirelessly to achieve milestones in this project. This project has brought about the much-needed awareness to many stakeholders and more importantly implemented some very laudable initiatives in optimising resource usage. It’s a significant achievement to note that the project played a major role in the adoption of Green Reporting System by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.”

He went on to point out that many SMEs have been able to obtain the ISO 22000:2005 and ISO 14000:2004 after the intervention of the SWITCH-Asia program. Their resourceful leadership shows their commitment towards adopting not only economic but also environmentally-sound sustainable technologies.

The project was in partnership with IVAM Uva BV (The Netherlands), CII (India), Industrial Technology Institute (ITI), Industrial Services Bureau (ISB) and Industrial Development Board (IDB).