Ministries Cooperate to Promote Green Industry in Indonesia

Jakarta: The industry and energy and mineral resources ministries are committed to improving the national green industry by prioritizing the effective and efficient use of sustainable resources.
 
The green industry is one of the easier issues for the two entities to resolve owing to their same goal, Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita remarked.
 
“When we talk about industry, our mission is to develop a green industry so that these products can become green products,” he said at a press conference on a meeting between the two industries in Bogor, West Java, on Monday.
 

Minister Kartasasmita disclosed that his ministry will develop methods to pursue the goal, saying the effort is relevant to the strategy developed by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.
 
The ministries will push the use of rooftop solar power plants in industries so that they can support industries and help create a green industry in Indonesia, including adapting technological developments to the demands of the times.
 
“We must not forget that technology will always adapt to the demands of each era,” he reminded.
 
He then said that the government is also encouraging the use of carbon capture technology (CCS/CCUS) to check greenhouse gas emissions since there is still an abundance of coal potential in the country.
 
“This is one example of our efforts to encourage industries in Indonesia to become green industry, so that products produced by domestic industries can gradually become green products,” he remarked.
 
The minister opined that the green industry can function as the backbone for maintaining domestic products by utilizing clean energy that can be renewed more easily, which can prevent the industries from being impacted significantly by global geopolitical instability, which could, in turn, cause commodity and energy prices to skyrocket.
 
The industrial sector has been impacted significantly by the increase in fuel and raw materials prices considering that raw materials make up 87.25 percent of the total production costs, while fuel, electricity, and gas account for 5.87 percent.
 
The industrial sector truly needs to be supported by sustainable energy supply given that the sector accounts for 40 percent of the total national energy needs, he elaborated.
 
This makes the industrial sector the second-largest energy user after the transportation sector. In 2019, the sector consumed 389.4 million barrels of oil equivalent to coal, gas, and electricity, in addition to diesel oil and fuel oil. Of the total energy consumption, 85 percent was used as fuel, and the remaining 15 percent was used as raw material for production.
 
Meanwhile, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister, Arifin Tasrif, said that it is important to pursue green industry development as carbon tax has begun to be implemented on a global scope.
 
If the switch to clean energy is not made, the carbon tax will put great pressure on national industries, Tasrif said.
 
“We have many sources of clean, renewable energy that we must use. We must be grateful that the country is blessed with many potential sources that we must tap into,” he added.
 
“Indeed, in the implementation, there are bottlenecks that we have to resolve together. We believe in coordination and communication, then from these things we can design appropriate programs,” he said. 
 

(WAH)