Current issues of environmental management in Vietnam the case of VEDAN Vietnam

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Current issues of environmental management

in Vietnam: The case of VEDAN Vietnam

VNU University of Economics and Business Hoang Van Hai*, Nguyen Dang Minh**

Nguyen Phuong Mai***

VNU Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Law Tran Thi Hong Lien****

Abstract: The theme of environmental management and sustainable economic development has attracted

increasing attention of public organizations, businesses and citizens in Vietnam However, the picture of sustainable

development in Vietnam is unclear when we look into the current situation of illegal industrial waste emissions

by manufacturers both inside and outside of industrial zones More and more enterprises have been detected

discharging solids, water and gas waste into surrounding streams, fields and the air and among them foreign

companies account for a significant share The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the current issue of

environmental management, specifically industrial waste emission management in Vietnam The case study of

VEDAN Vietnam also was introduced Suggestion for improve those current environmental management issues

112 Haiindd 1

have been also made

Keywords: Environment management, Industrial waste emission, Sustainable development

1 Introduction

In recent years, environmental pollution caused by

production activities has been a hot issue that has led

to pressing nationwide public controversy in Vietnam

The pollution issue directly threatens the sustainable

socio-economic development and the existence of cur-

*Associate Professor, VNU University of Economics

and Business, Vietnam

** *** Lecturer, VNU University of Economics and

Business, Vietnam

**** T ecturer, VNU Ho Chi Minh City University of

Economics and Law, Vietnam

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rent and future generations

Colby (1991) stated that societies are now begin- ning to have serious discussions about sustainable development, but there is still a great deal of confusion over what this means and how to achieve it There- fore, solving the environmental pollution issues in this current period of accelerating industrialization and modernization is not only an imperative task for gov- ernmental organizations and enterprises but also the responsibility of the entire society The concept of sus- tainable business needs to be linked with Environmen-

tal management Pahl-Wost (2006) pointed out that

environmental management is a purposeful activity with the goal to maintain and improve the state of an environmental resource affected by human activities It

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is not, as the phrase suggested, the management of the

environment as such, but rather the management of the

interaction and impact of human societies on the envi-

ronment Taking the same viewpoint, many researchers

claim that Environmental management is the process

by which environmental health is regulated It does not

involve managing the environment itself, but it is the

process of taking steps and behaviors to have a positive

effect on the environment Environmental management

involves the wise use of activity and resources to have

an impact on the world In other words, environmental

resources management aims to ensure that ecosystem

services are protected and maintained for equitable

use by future human generations, and also, maintain

ecosystem integrity as an end in itself by taking into

consideration ethical, economic, and scientific ecologi-

cal variables Environmental resource management

tries to identify the factors that have a stake in the

conflicts that may rise between meeting the needs and

protecting the resources Many organizations develop

a management plan or system to implement, manage

and maintain environmental goals Management plans

for the environment are constructed by many com-

panies and organizations, as taking care of the planet

is the responsibility of everybody in every type of

profession Sustainability and environmental resource

management involves managing economic, social, and

ecological systems within and external to an organiza-

tional entity in order for it to sustain itself and the sys-

tem it exists within (Avery & Bergsteiner 2010, Dun-

phy, Griffitths & Ben 2007) In context, sustainability

implies that rather than competing for endless growth

on a finite planet, development will improve quality

of life without necessarily having to consume more

resources (Costanza 1991) In order to sustainably

manage the state of environmental resources affected

by human activities organizational change is needed to

instill sustainability values within an organization, in

order to portray these values outwardly from all levels

and to reinforce them in its surrounding stakeholder

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community (Avery & Bergsteiner, 2010; Dunphy,

Griffitths & Ben, 2007) The end result should be a

symbiotic relationship between the sustaining organi- zation and community, along with the environment

There are many drivers that compel environmental resource management to take sustainability issues into account Today’s economic paradigms do not protect the natural environment, yet they deepen human de- pendency on biodiversity and ecosystem services As

an exceptionally powerful contributing factor to social and environmental change, the modern organization has the potential to apply environmental resource management with sustainability principals to achieve highly affective outcomes To achieve sustainable de- velopment with environmental resource management,

as the UN Global Compact 2010 suggests, an organi- zation should coincide with sustainability principals, such as: social and environmental accountability, long- term planning; a strong, shared vision; a holistic focus;

devolved and consensus decision making; broad stake- holder engagement and justice; transparency measures;

trust; and flexibility Concerns for the environmental impact of business activities arouse in earnest in the Jatter part of the 20th century with the evidence of chemical pollution and a variety of environmentally significant industrial accidents The accumulating evidence of serious environmental effects led govern- ments to begin exerting influence on business to clean

up their pollution practices Environmental concerns

arose for individual nations (with the United States

establishing the Environmental Protection Agency

in 1969) and within the United Nations (Unesco’s

Intergovernmental Conference for Rational use and Conversation of the Biosphere in 1988) The evolution

of environmental NGOs also played a significant role

in convincing businesses to take greater care of the Environment (the Environmental Defense Fund began in1967 and Greenpeace emerged in 1972) Pushed by

these external forces, businesses in the last quarter of

the 20th century began to consider environmental is-

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Current issues of environmental management in Vietnam: The case of VEDAN Vietnam 3

sues in a more serious manner

Sustainable economic development cannot be

achieved without giving attention to industrial waste

management Waste in form of solid waste, wastewater

or gases is not only an inevitable result of any manu-

facturing processes, but it also can negatively affect

the quality of human life The problem of industrial

waste is especially serious in emerging economies like

Vietnam just as it was in Japan and Korea decades ago

In the past, when the renovation process began, the

relationship between economic development and en-

vironmental protection was ignored due to low aware-

ness of the environmental problems The top priority

of the country was to foster economic development

Environmental protection was treated separately from

socio-economic development in many Vietnamese

industries and organizations As a result, the environ-

ment was severely damaged by such major polluters

as domestic business enterprises and foreign directed

investment (FDI) companies U.S Commercial Ser-

vice Vietnam (2010) pointed out that due to a growing

population, rapid urbanization and increased consump-

tion, municipal waste generation in Vietnam is expand-

ing considerably The types of waste produced will

continue to undergo a change from more degradable to

less degradable and more hazardous Growth in haz-

ardous waste-intensive industries such as chemical and

electronic products is already increasing the proportion

of hazardous waste generated in Vietnam In its 2011

report, the agency continued to clarify the industrial

waste problem in Vietnam According to the report,

hazardous waste handling remains weak Industrial

hazardous waste treatment systems are largely inad-

equate Given the lack of treatment facilities and lim-

ited incentives for safe disposal, many industries use

a variety of unsafe methods of treatment and disposal

such as collecting and disposing the hazardous waste

with municipal waste, storing hazardous waste onsite,

selling to recyclers, or even dumping indiscriminately

(U.S Commercial Service Vietnam, 2011) The moni-

toring results show a tendency of river water has to be degraded Water in the upstream is still clean, while in the downstream becoming worse and worse due to the impacts from different socio-economic activities (es-

pecially industrial production) (Hua, 2009)

In Vietnam, water-related environmental impacts can occur in a number of sectors including food pro-

cessing, textile dying and printing, and electroplating

Seafood-processing companies are a typical example

of the impact since they contribute a high propor- tion of the overall effluent discharge in waterways

The effluent streams created from fish processing, which include high loads of organic matter, are often discharged directly into local rivers and coastal areas without any pre-treatment (Mitchell, 2003) Curbing

this problem is difficult Mitchell (2003) also identi-

fied main obstacles to cleaner production or barriers to better industrial waste management including i) The Policy Environment in Vietnam, ii) Dependence on

Outside Assistance, iii) Traditional Corporate Culture,

iv) Weak Internal Information System The proportion

of manufacturing based on primary materials and natu- ral resources is still high (over 80%) comparing with the industries based on the assembly and high tech industries This is the main reasons that water resource

is wasteful and water pollution causing by the existing situation of Vietnamese industrial sector (Ngo, 2008)

Facing the situation, policy on solid waste man- agement in urban and industrial areas of Vietnam is issued in 10/07/1999 by Decision 152/1999/QD-TTG

of Prime Minister In addition, the National Environ- mental Action Plan 2001 - 2005 (NEAP) is focusing

on five programs, among them Program 2 concerning:

Improve solid waste management capacity, especially hazardous waste management in densely populated

urban areas and industria] zones (Invent Project (2009)

Nonetheless, the regulations have not contributed much to industrial environmental improvement A re-

port by Global Environmental Forum (2002) expected

a change to industrial waste management in Vietnam

112_Haiindd 3 1

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driven by Japanese companies “When it comes to in-

dustrial waste, especially hazardous industrial waste,

which is expected to become a serious environmental

issue in Vietnam, there are now no facilities within the

country that can treat and dispose of them as required

by law Under these circumstances, Japanese compa-

nies operating in Vietnam have spent a large amount of

money vigorously implementing environmental mea-

sures, especially for wastewater control Those manu-

facturing automobiles, motorcycles, or electric appli-

ances, many of which are internationally well known,

have attracted much attention from Vietnam as well as

from other countries for their environmental protection

efforts Japanese companies that have financial and

technological resources are expected not only to con-

tinue their steady environmental protection efforts but

also to transfer technology and know-how related to

environmental protection to local companies and to be

a driving force for promoting Vietnamese environmen-

tal protection.” However, this dream has not come true

A wide variety of researches share a common view

of industrial pollution in Vietnam: It is getting orse

Hopes were raised by advances in environment protec-

tion awareness and technologies of foreign companies,

and even the country soon issued regulations for this

field but industrial waste is still illegally emitted more

and more recent years So what are the root causes

and how to deal with them is the research question for

Vietnamese researchers about environmental manage-

ment issues

In the scope of this paper, latest situation of indus-

trial waste emission in Vietnam was discussed, sugges-

tion for the improvement of environmental manage-

ment has been made

2 Some Facts and Figures

To illustrate the current situation of environment management, specifically industrial waste in Vietnam,

survey of companies that were detected to have com-

mitted illegal waste emissions was done In the survey,

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we use the internet to randomly collect information concerning the illegal waste emission cases As a re- sult, we identified 68 cases that occurred in the entire

territory of Vietnam For each case, we determined

the company’s location, industry and nationality An

analysis of the survey produced the following results

(Figure 1)

|

| Composition of Companies with

Illegal Waste Emission

@ Vietnam Companies

a FDI Companies

Figure 1: Composition of Companies with illegal Waste Emission

Source: From the author’s survey

Among 68 surveyed companies, 50 are Vietnam-

ese legal persons and the remaining 18 are FDI ones

In other words, Vietnamese companies accounted for nearly three fourths and FDI companies accounted for one fourth of the total cases These numbers are

meaningful since they clarify the fact that not only lo-

cal companies but also foreign compnies are culprits

of the industrial pollution problem in Vietnam For the foreign group, we further divided them into sub-

categories according to nationality, and the result is described in Figure 2

Since the early 1990s, Vietnam has been a destina- tion for foreign investors from around the world Be- sides their great contribution to the growth of Vietnam,

the FDI companies have also destroyed local environ-

ments where they have been located Eighteen com- panies committing illegal waste emission come from

a variety of nations, but primarily from Taiwan (44%)

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Current issues of environmental management in Vietnam: The case of VEDAN Vietnam 5

FDI Companies with INegal Waste |

= Taiwan (China)

Korea

Japan

m Malaysia

Britain

Figure 2 FDI Companies with Illegal Waste Emis-

sion by Nationality

Source: From the author’s survey

and Korea (33%) The other three nations, Japan, Brit-

ain and Malaysia, represent highly developed countries

or at least a newly industrialized country (NIC) At

first glance, these numbers may amaze many people

Why do companies from developed countries illegally

emit industrial waste in Vietnam? In their mother

countries, such companies are familiar with regulations

and high business ethical standards related to environ-

ment protection So why don’t they act accordingly?

This question is important since many people suppose

that this unfortunate situation of industrial waste emis-

sion in Vietnam is due to a lack of company awareness

of environment protection However, the evidence

demonstrates that even companies with a complete

understanding and awareness of environmental protec-

tion do indeed violate the rules

Besides the participation of FDI companies, the

problem of illegal industrial waste emission in Viet-

nam is getting more and more serious with more cases

appearing each year Result in Figure 3 shows the

numbers of cases present from 2007 to 2011 in Quang

Ngai province, a small province in Vietnam The num-

ber more than doubled from 2007 to 2008 and again

from 2008 to 2011

This sharp increase is common in other provinces

as well, especially in economic centers such as Ho Chi

Number of [egal Waste Emission Cases in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam from 2007 to 2011

Year

2010

«sere Number of Cases

Figure 3 Number of illegal waste emission cases in

Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam from 2007 to 2011

Source: From the author’s survey

Minh City, Dong Nai province, Binh Duong province and Hanoi Capital We also found out that the com- panies in the survey were of different sizes and types,

from small family businesses to multinationals, from private companies to state-owned ones and of different manufacturing industry bases For the last five years,

the Police Agency for Environment Protection (Min-

istry of Public Security) has established its local head-

quarters in all 64 provinces and detected violations by enterprises in all provinces, and one historical case of breaking environment law was VEDAN Vietnam

4 The Case VEDAN Vietnam

In 1954, Ve Cheng Food (the initial name of VE- DAN) was established in Taichung, Taiwan In the

1960s, the company utilized microbial fermentation

technology to produce glutamic acid products, convert- ing sugar cane molasses into monosodium glutamate

This glutamic acid fermentation process was not only

a breakthrough technology but it also received a patent

from the Central Standards Bureau of the Ministry of Economy, Taiwan VEDAN was officially launched in

1970

In 1991, VEDAN set up an advanced plant in

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Phuoc Thai, Long Thanh, Dong Nai province, Vietnam

on a production site of 120 hectares, with facilities that

contained power, disposal processing, water purifica-

tion, and a private harbor equipment administrative

building, and recreation areas for the company’s staff,

to ensure a stable production and a steady water and

electricity supply This in total created a solid manu-

facturing infrastructure for VEDAN

To this point, VEDAN Vietnam has increasingly invested in expanding its subsidiaries all over the

country including four branches in Hanoi, Phuoc Long

(Binh Phuoc), Binh Thuan, Ha Tinh and two compa-

nies called Orsan Vietnam Limited Company in Ho

Chi Minh City and Veyu Limited Company in Gia Lai

province Through its production expansion, VEDAN

has established a strong nationwide distribution sys-

tem In the world market, VEDAN is the leading Asian

company in the production of fermentation-based ami-

no acids, food additive products and cassava starch-

based industrial products in Asia It markets products

to food distributors, international trading companies,

and companies in Vietnam that manufacture food, pa-

per, textile, and chemical products The company also

distributes to the ASEAN countries, The PRC, Japan,

Taiwan and other European countries Most VEDAN’s

products are marketed under the brand name, VEDAN

4.1 The Failure of VEDAN Vietnam in Environ-

mental Protection

In Vietnam, VEDAN declares that its strategic goal

is “Rooting in Vietnam, innovating the future togeth-

er’ This general goal is concretized into three strategic

goals: co-operating for long-term development, global

aiming-local producing; growing and more growing

The company has built a corporate culture including

below sound business philosophies

@ Innovation, professionalism, excellence, mod- esty

@ Long-term strategy and investment

@ Provision of employees’ welfare, deep consid-

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eration and quick response to the needs of the company’s employees

@ High focus on hygiene and environmental pro- tection

©) Applying the essence of operational standard- ization, strict management and implementation

of established goals

What VEDAN has declared seems to show its high commitment to the development of Vietnam in general and the field of environmental protection in particu-

lar However, in the 17 years since its first establish-

ment in Vietnam, VEDAN has managed to reverse the viewpoint of local governments, consumers and other stakeholders towards to this company

On 13th September 2008, environmental police and inspectors from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment inspected VEDAN’s factory in Long Thanh district, Dong Nai province Inspectors dis- covered that VEDAN had installed a pumping system

to discharge a large volume of untreated waste water into the 30km long Thi Vai River, which rises in Long Thanh district of Dong Nai province and discharges into a bay on the north side of the resort city of Vung Tau The firm’s waste water contained high levels of molasses and chemicals On September 19th, 2008, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

of Vietnam presented to the mass media ten violations

committed by VEDAN that caused serious environ-

mental pollution in the Thi Vai River (MONRE, 2008)

@ Discharging a volume of untreated waste water

by the company’s starch factory that is ten times higher than the accepted limits

@ Discharging a volume of untreated waste water

by the company’s glutamate factory and lysine factory that is ten times higher than the accept-

ed limits

@) Discharging untreated waste water that is ten times higher than the accepted limits in other

factories of the company

@ Submitting insufficient data from field survey,

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Current issues of environmental management in Vietnam: The case of VEDAN Vietnam 7

inspection, observation and other related docu- ments to the governmental body in charge of keeping archives of environmental data under the regulations of Vietnam law

©) Failing to register the environmental protection

commitment in the pig raising farm to the envi- ronmental protection agency

© Upgrading and operating the soda-acid factory

with capacity increasing from 3,116 tons/month

to 6,600 tons/month without writing an environ- mental impact assessment report

@ Upgrading and operating the glutamate factory

with capacity increasing from 5,000 tons/month

to 15,000 tons/month, the starch factory with enhanced capacity from 2,000 tons/month to 4,000 tons/month, lysine factory from 1,200 tons/month to 1,400 tons/month, deluxe sea- soning at the capacity of 20 tons/month, PGA

700 tons/year, Vedagro phosphate at 7000 tons/

month (solid), 280,000 (liquid) without writing

a report on the environmental impact assess- ment

Discharging fetid odors directly into the envi- ronment without the use of devices that limit environmental pollution

@ Failing to manage toxic waste in accordance to

environmental protection regulations

(® Discharging waste water into the water source

at the wrong position as defined in the license

of water discharge

Evidence from the ministry’s inspection showed

that VEDAN Vietnam used very complicated and con-

cealed underground pipeline systems to discharge un-

treated waste water into the Thi Vai River The system

had hundreds of lines and valves connected to a water

pump so that all of the untreated waste water was dis-

charged into the river when the operator opened the

valves

According to the inspection team, the volume of

untreated waste water exceeded 2.300 m3 per day

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Fermented water fluid discharged directly into the

river increased to 105,600 m3 per month To rectify the situation it would cost an initial investment of 140 billion VND to install a waste water treatment system and a monthly expense of 210 billion VND to oper- ate the system in order to process the high volume of waste water that contains such high levels of molasses and chemicals It is said that the food processing busi- ness requires that 15 per cent of the initial fixed cost should be invested in environmental protection while VEDAN Vietnam invested only 1 per cent (Nguyen, 2008) VEDAN Vietnam’s malicious act of discharg- ing untreated waste water was an intended conspiracy beginning when the company first established its fa- cilities in Vietnam in 1991 VEDAN silently destroyed the environment of Vietnam for 17 years until finally caught by the Vietnamese government

It is obvious that the sound business philosophy of VEDAN Vietnam had little to do with their actual busi- ness practices Why it did that? There are two main reasons for their poor compliance

4.2 Causes behind the Scene First, in Vietnam, environmental protection laws have not been fully developed and not rigorously en- forced There are approximately 300 legal documents

in the field of environmental protection to regulate the behaviors of individuals, organizations, economic ac- tivities, technical procedures and raw material produc-

tion processing (Nguyen, 2008) However, these legal

documents are incomplete, inconsistent and unstable

Many new amended legal documents have to be re- viewed, changed and complemented As a result, the effects of these legal documents in adjusting individual and organizational behaviors in environmental protec- tion are limited In addition, the Environmental Protec- tion Law of Vietnam is not a preventive deterrent as many companies manage to find loop-holes “Statistics

reveals that VEDAN is not an exceptional case, 80

percent out of 100 industrial parks have violated envi-

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ronmental protection regulations Thus, the Ministry

of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) has

been assigning more inspection teams to investigate

most of organizations in various regions throughout

the country and top priority will be directed towards

hotspots of environmental pollution such as Thi Vai

River, Khanh Hoa Province, Nhue river and Day river,

and severe polluters will be forced to close” (Tran,

2008) In Vietnam, the state has promulgated the Law

of Environment Protection since 1993, and numerous

legal documents and guidelines on environmental man-

agement have been issued, of which the most recent

documents are, Circular No 08 providing guidelines

to assess environmental impacts, and Decision No 23

regarding treatments of hazardous waste, and natural

resources allocation In spite of the fact that Vietnam

has numerous legal documents to protect the environ-

ment, the effectiveness of law enforcement is relatively

insignificant The penalties for violating environmen-

tal protection regulations are not commensurate with

the level of damage caused to the environment The

Decree on Sanctions in the field of environmental

protection specifies that the maximum fine imposed

on culprits is 70 million VND; while the Ordinance on

Administrative Sanctions defines the highest amount

of monetary penalty as 500 million VND These fig-

ures are a mere annoyance for large corporations such

as VEDAN when compared with their illegally derived

benefits Moreover, fines that are case specific are soon

out of date and incommensurable with the violations

Currently, the Criminal Law of Vietnam has sev- eral articles which regulate environmental crimes In

particular is Article No 183, which is concerned with

water source pollution Unfortunately, this law defines

that criminal liability is imposed on individuals rather

than organizations As a consequence, it is impossible

to impute the blame for environmental pollution to or-

ganizations such as the case of VEDAN Vietnam As a

result, there have been conflicting opinions on how to

handle the VEDAN Vietnam case MONRE, in 2008,

112_Halindd 8 G

required Dong Nai People’s Committee to suspend production in VEDAN’s factories until the company installed a new waste processing system that would meet the requirements and environmental protection standards of Vietnam Ironically, Dong Nai People’s Committee responded that they could not do this because the Ordinance on Administrative Sanctions specifies that “A violating act is fined once” VEDAN Vietnam had paid its administrative fine in the amount

of 267.5 million VND to the Financial Service of Dong Nai province and this meant that the company could not be fined at another time with an additional decision for the same kind of environmental violation

In fact, several FD] companies have failed to comply with provisions of Vietnam’s environmental protection law and purposefully violated the law, such

as VEDAN Vietnam According to Vietnamese Foreign Investment Law, foreign enterprises that want to set up

manufacturing facilities in Vietnam are allowed to rent

land for production for a maximum fifty year period

This provision drives the enterprises to under-evaluate the environmental impacts caused by their production processes because when their projects are finished, the environmental damages are yet to be determined

In addition, when environmental violations occur, it

is quite difficult to find the culprits, and so companies have the tendency to rely on others while silently violating the laws with a belief that they will never be caught

Second, within the Vietnam business community, ethical standards have not been established in the field

of environment protection and other social responsi- bilities Local companies have not been the volunteers

in protecting the environment, so foreign enterprises are under no pressure to do so

Major culprits of the mentioned environmental pollution are 9,000 industrial manufacturing facili- ties dispersed in residential areas along the Dong Nai river valley Approximately 48,000m3 of waste water

is discharged per day into this valley by these facili-

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Current issues of environmental management in Vietnam: The case of VEDAN Vietnam 9

ties Along the river valley, 56 industrial zones and

export processing zones are in operation and only

twenty-one of these have central waste water treatment

systems The remaining operations discharge waste

water directly into the river causing severe damage to

the environment By the end of 2008, up to 200 indus-

trial zones had been established by Vietnam’s Prime

Minister and hundreds of industrial clusters have been

founded under the decisions made by People’s Com-

mittees of central cities, of which approximately 15

percent utilize the central waste water treatment sys-

tems (MONRE, 2008) Several industrial zones have

the systems but they are not operated in order to save

costs for the companies Until now, only 60 industrial

zones, accounting for 42% of operating industrial

ones, have run the central waste water treatment sys-

tem and another 20 industrial zones are building the

system Research findings estimate that a daily amount

of 30,000 tons of solid and liquid waste and other haz-

ardous substances are discharged by these industrial

zones In particular is the environment surrounding the

Dong Nai industrial zone, where VEDAN Vietnam is

located and pollution is most seriously occurring We

cannot deny the fact that enterprises, both local and

foreign, understand why they must protect the environ-

ment via industrial waste management The research

evidence suggests that they must finish their environ-

ment impact reports as a part of proper investment

procedures and they must be required to build waste

treatment systems inside their factories However,

we must also recognize the nature of doing business;

business people find all the ways to save costs and

increase profits How should business people act to

balance these objectives? There are two forces that can

lead them in the balance - laws and social pressure

As aforementioned, environmental protection laws

in Vietnam are underdeveloped and poorly enforced;

so the first force is weak The second force is minor

as well as consumers in Vietnam have not recognized

their own rights and their ability to affect business

112_Hai.indd 9 †

decisions Even though hundreds of companies have been investigated and certified to have committed il- legal waste emissions, there has been no boycotting of products manufactured by companies that have vio- lated environmental protection laws

5 Discussion and suggestion for improve- ment of environmental management in Vietnam

Without rigorous law enforcement and social pres- sure, companies in Vietnam are free to destroy the en- vironment without fear of punishment Less developed and developing countries are aware of the consequenc-

es of environmental pollution to a certain extent How- ever, they have to trade off the environment against economic development in order to eliminate poverty

The philosophy here is that people will be killed by hunger sooner than by the polluted environment In- dustrialized countries have been profoundly aware of the effects of industrial waste on the environment and have paid dearly for those old technologies that pro- duce an abundance of waste, polluting the ecosystem

In reaction, developed countries have constructed strict regulations to remove toxins from industrial waste

in their own countries in order to protect human life

Ironically, these same developed countries, who are keenly aware of the effects of pollution in their own

environments, have passed on their old practices to

poor countries, or even sold pollution at inflated prices through the transference of older technologies, thereby violating environmental protection regulations, simul- taneously concealing these environmental violations, under the veil of harvesting profit This evidence once again confirms that in dealing with illegal industrial waste emission, governments, especially in emerging countries like Vietnam, should not put trust in the self- awareness and self-discipline of independent enter- prises, even ones that come from developed countries

They are doing business according to their natural tendencies

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112 Halindd 10

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10

The government must develop and rigorously en- force a comprehensive system of laws on industrial

waste management in particular, and environment

protection in general In addition, they must encourage

individual consumers to be environment protectors by

using their rights to buy or to deny a product

Conclusion

On the basis of the above discussion on current issues of industrial waste emission in Vietnam today,

some suggestions are raised such as how the legal

framework of environmental protection should be

improved to enhance the enforcement of law provi-

sions The capacity of governmental staff in charge of

environmental violation inspection and control needs

to be strengthened as well Finally, the Vietnamese

people should pave the way for a movement of anti-

environmental violation practices There also should

be a standard code of conduct in business ethics which

could provide guidelines for enterprises in order to

direct them toward more ethical behavior and more

environmental friendly actions

It is not an over exaggeration to conclude that il- legal industrial waste emission is a serious problem for

current and future development in Vietnam, and how

the country should deal with the situation as suggested

above may be applicable for other emerging countries

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Asian CORE Program “Manufacturing and Environ-

mental Management in East Asia” of Japan Society for

the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

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