Pollution licences to hinder Chinese sweetener producers
Efforts by the Chinese government to increase environmental protection, including its so-called pollutant discharge licences, could have a negative effect on the country’s sweetener producers, according to CCM.
The measurements come into action because the quality of air and water in many regions has not achieved the standard value for a long time. The discharge licences require manufacturers with pollutant emissions to be licensed until 2020, with the aim of cutting pollution to reach the standard value of quality for many regions.
Although a pollutant discharge licensing system was in action before, it was not effective due to an impractical placing of responsibility on organisations and a lack of appropriate supervision by the environmental protection departments, according to data and business intelligence company CCM.
The new system aims to clear out past vagueness and will be supervised more strictly. Listing key measures from the proposal of 21 November 2016, CCM says it will change from an administrative area pollutant discharge system to a certain organisation affecting one.
The applications for licensing should be completed before the project is constructed, which serves as a reference for the planned regular environmental checks. It also allows authorities to monitor pollution in advance.
The management of the licensing management requires a catalogue, created by the environmental protection departments, about the pollutant discharge. This will be accordingly changed to the different type of industries and their impact on the environment. The organisations can then apply for the licence by stating their pollution variety, amounts, and concentration.
The governmental departments are requested to do inspections more frequently, according to the pollution emission of companies, and get the rights to punish blunder with production limitation, suspension, and shutdown.
On the other side, the licensing system encourages organisations to give themselves stricter pollution limits, which can be regarded by preferential electricity prices and governmental preference.
This newly implemented licence will be the only permission for organisations to emit any pollution and every other method will be illegal. The licences will be granted for three years in the first instance and five more years after every renewal.
The proposal also states the implementation of an information platform, where the licence applications, verifications, and supervision will be concentrated and be visible to the public.
The licensing system has already been implemented for the thermal power stations and paper producing industry in China, with more industries set to follow.
CCM says the sweetener industry may be impacted, looking at high pollution manufacturers, particularly in the high-intensity sweetener business. These include the production of sucralose, which pollution is unable to be easily biologically degraded.
“Looking at the small enterprises, who cannot afford the treatment equipment necessary for the licence and bigger manufacturers with their production likely being reduced, the whole output of the sweetener industry in China may decrease the next years notably,” it explains.
