Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya joined Kalla in giving away the awards to company representatives at the vice presidential palace.
"I convey my gratitude to the companies who received the Proper Gold Award. Congratulations," he said.
Kalla asked the ministry to make public the names of companies that received Black and Red ratings in the evaluation, so that the public knew how good or bad a company was on environmental compliance.
The Black rating is given to companies that make little efforts at compliance, including those that openly dump hazardous waste. By contrast, the Red rating is given to companies that have made efforts towards environmental management but have not yet met the standards stipulated in the regulations.
"I will notice (companies) with the Proper Gold Award as well as those in the Black category," the vice president said.
Proper is an annual program of the ministry, aimed at encouraging companies to comply with the regulations by providing incentives and disincentives to their reputation.
The program also aims to encourage companies with good performance to practice more environment-friendly production processes.
In 2016, the Proper program extended to 1,930 companies in 111 types of industry. The compliance rate of companies rose to 84 percent this year, an increase of 11 percent from 2015.
Twelve companies received the Proper Gold Award while 172 received a Green rating, 1,422 a Blue rating, 284 a Red rating, and five a Black rating. Thirteen companies are under legal process, and 22 companies have stopped operations.
The Gold Award is given to companies that consistently make innovations in their production process, practice good business ethics, and engage in community development programs.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
