SWITCH Asia helps improve green index

By Sanjeevi Jayasuriya

Sri Lanka has joined the world on green initiatives to preserve the environment. The country’s green index is improving due to numerous measures taken to support the efforts.

The impact of the SWITCH (Sustainable World Introducing Technological Change) Asia program is encouraging and the policy interventions have supported the successful implementation, CCC Solutions (Pvt) Ltd CEO, Prema Cooray said.The SWITCH Asia program has created a sustainable platform to improve production processors and systems.

It has enabled optimum use of resource and has set a benchmark to follow, he said at the SWITCH Asia program on SCP (Sustainable Consumption and Production) for food and beverage industry in Colombo last week.A holistic approach in sustainable consumption and production in the food and beverage industry was emphasised through this program to improve environment management and resources optimisation of 519 SMEs.

The program also aimed to assist capacity increase and to adopt sustainable consumption and production to meet international standards to improve the environment.

The program was launched four years ago in collaboration with international and local partners and the European Union as the funding partner. It is implemented by Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.It was developed to support Asian countries adopting more sustainable growth patterns so as to minimise the use of natural resources and the emission of greenhouse gases, waste and other pollutants.

One of the important elements of the program is the network facility which ensures that successful results are communicated and replicated.

A network facility connects project, policy makers and stakeholders in the world of SCP and provides mechanism such as green club to assist industrialists to share their views and act collectively. The project will assist SMEs to comply with international food safety standards and give consultancy until they achieve the ISO 22000 Food Safety Certification.