The three pillars of the integrated approach to the sustainable financing of sound management of chemicals and wastes are mainstreaming, industry involvement and dedicated external finances. These three pillars are mutually reinforcing and are all important for the long-term and sustainable financing of the sound management of chemicals and waste.
Mainstreaming (integrating sound chemicals management into national policies and programmes)
As chemicals and wastes management cuts across all economic development and natural resource sectors, including agriculture, health, environment, water, transport, industry, energy and mining, mainstreaming can leverage significant resources for the chemicals and wastes sector.
Furthermore, owing to the potential environmental and health problems posed by chemicals and wastes, mainstreaming will enhance the collective gains from effective management of chemicals and wastes, including poverty alleviation and sustainable development.
Sound management of chemicals throughout their life cycle need to become a policy and investment priority to decouple sustainable development advances from the potential and growing risks from mismanagement of chemicals to human health, the environment and to the economic development.
Implementing the sound management of chemicals at the national level requires a variety of actions that together form an enabling environment. Typically, several ministries and state administrations need to be involved as these actions are likely to be beyond the mandate of an environment ministry. In advancing mainstreaming, it is important to engage industry stakeholders in chemically intensive economic sectors.
Moreover, ensuring that sound chemicals management needs are mainstreamed nationally enables support through national budgets, bilateral development assistance plans, and multilateral assistance framework processes.
Industry involvement
The integrated approach proposes that governments develop legislation which clearly defines the sharing of responsibilities between governments and industry.
Industry involvement through command and control, economic instruments and voluntary agreements can reduce the cost of the sound management of chemicals and wastes along the whole value chain. It includes, for example, measures to internalise costs of complying with chemicals and wastes regulations and standards as well as to adhere to international good practices, and national laws and regulations.
Industries at all points of the value chain in the chemicals life cycle have critical roles to play in supporting the chemicals and wastes agenda. The involvement begins from production facilities for organic chemicals, petrochemicals, inorganic chemicals and fertilisers, through processing and blending facilities, commercial and consumer use systems, and ends with disposal and recycling facilities.
The effective and cost‑efficient involvement of industry requires clarity and coherence in the allocation of mandates and responsibilities between public bodies and industry. Hence there is a need to identify the mandate of public bodies involved in any related activities, at every stage of a chemical’s life cycle, and to ensure an adequate allocation of responsibilities between national administrations and industry.
In promoting effective industry involvement, governments and public bodies have a key role to play in the supervision and management of activities by adopting legislation, using economic instruments (tax, fines, incentives etc.), in providing general information on chemicals risks and enterprises’ responsibilities, and in enforcing and monitoring compliance.
Cost recovery measures aim at shifting the hidden public costs of managing chemicals from government budgets to private sources, with a view to promote a more appropriate sharing of costs between the public and private sectors.
Dedicated external finance
To complement the priorities of the Global Environmental Fund, the Special Programme has been established as an external funding element of the integrated approach. It supports specifically the institutional strengthening for the implementation of the sound management of chemicals and waste at the national level, including mainstreaming and defining the role of the industry. The Special Programme is hosted by UN Environment and is operational since 2016.
