GEO Brasil - UNEP

This is true specially when dealing with the organic and
sulfuric loads, which are the main pollutants, controlled by
the environmental monitoring agents. In other words, we
can not affirm that the Brazilian industrial product
demonstrates a specific environmental standard on
pollutants.
On the other hand, the observed tendencies in some means
should be recognised. This is specially true in a globalise
context where environmental demands could turn out to
be an obstacle for the competitiveness of the Brazilian
industry. In this regard, we will further analyse how the
internal market sees this challenge.
2.2. Determining Factors of Environmental
Management in the Brazilian Industry
Environmental management has gained a place in Brazilian
industry over the last decade. A considerable number of
companies, today, have environmental units within their
organisations. There is also the constant increase of
importance they give to certificates like ISO 14000. The
results of research performed by CNI (1998) show that
approximately 85% of medium and big enterprises adopt
some kind of environmental management.
The process of entrepreneurs concerned with the
environment is not unique to Brazil. Rather it is a
consequence of several modifications and initiatives created
to control pollution. While some international markets
discriminate against intensive pollution products and reward
the so called “green” products, on the other hand a growing
globalisation of the Brazilian economy through new
investments, fusion and acquisition processes have
introduced a modification of entrepreneurs’ mentalities.
This is specially for those that are financially dependent on
countries with a strict environmental policy. Besides this,
the population’s conscience regarding environment has
suffered changes. Community pressures have grown
considerably as a result of consciousness raising processes,
environmental education and the establishment of new nongovernmental
organisations dealing with the environment.
The official regulation and introduction of informatics in
government regulatory agencies has made the pollution
control much easier. This was recently complemented by
the introduction of new laws, such as the Law on
Environmental Crimes.
In spite of all these institutional, social and economic
modifications, the investment in environmental protection
may still not represent a significant strategy to most
entrepreneurs. Although several steps have been taken to
improve the regulatory system, there are remote chances
of identifying and applying sanctions of environmental
violation. This is true specially in cases of small companies.
Due to this, there is a debate on the best policies of
environmental management and incentives that could be
created by the Government.
In this context, informal regulation has achieved
importance, promoting the idea that communities need
only the information and the right to bargain so they can
convince entrepreneurs to control the emission of
pollutants. The defended example is that most
environmental urban problems could be solved when
information on pollutant and emission magnitudes is
spread. If this is the truth, part of the funds invested in
formal regulation, control, monitoring and charges could
be invested in environmental information spreading
mechanism or some other action on a social scale. This
turns out to be of extreme importance for the
implementation of efficient environmental policies in order
to investigating if informal regulating pressure really has
some influence on entrepreneurs’ decisions.
Several formal and informal studies have tested the relation
between the emission levels of industrial plants with
environmental control indicators. It has been proven that
the formal pressure is as important as the characteristics of
the company and possible benefits (or costs) of the market
where an environmental result may occur. In South Asian
economies it has been verified that social pressure has a
direct response on environmental decisions in companies. 4
However, as far as Brazil is concerned, the pressure from
society may not occur directly, as the previous studies reveal.
This is true specially in São Paulo where there is a telephone
service for environmental accusations and an environmental
regulating agency that is considered the best in the Latin
America.
anexo 2
4
See Cohen (1998) and Hettige, Huq, Pargal and Wheeler (1996) for an essay on these studies.
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