La Jornada
David Zuñiga
July 23, 2001

Environmental unsustainaibility issues such as deforestation, lack of infrastructure, over-exploitation of resources, inadequate laws and institutions, and extreme poverty put the viability of the Plan Puebla-Panama at risk, warned Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, director of the Center for Economic Studies in the Private Sector for Sustainability Development (Cespedes).

According to an environmental sustainability study carried out in the Mexican states, the country ranks 73rd among the 122 nations listed by the World Economic Forum. The situation in Mexico is even more serious than in countries such as Cuba, Sri Lanka, Honduras, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.

Although all of the Mexican states included in the Plan Puebla-Panama face serious problems, Hidalgo, Chiapas, Morelos, and Veracruz are in especially critical situations in terms of pollution and failure to comply with environmental norms.

The indicators studied, which make up part of the Environmental Sustainability Index, include: biodiversity, demographic density, availability and treatment of water, mortality from respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases, management of dangerous waste products, sanitary landfills, use of alternative energy sources, ecological preserves, institutional eco-efficiency and compliance with ecological norms, surface area affected by fires, emissions from combustibles, production of dangerous waste, over-exploitation of underground water resources, and disposal of industrial and urban waste waters.

The states that received the highest ratings on the sustainability index were Baja California Sur, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Quintana Roo, and Sonora. Those ranked lowest were Hidalgo, Chiapas, Morelos, Veracruz, and Zacatecas.

Javier Prieto de la Fuente, president of the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin), recognized that few Mexican businesses comply with international standards of environmental protection. According to the Mexican Institute for Normalization and Certification, scarcely 200 companies comply with the ISO 14000 norms. These companies are mainly large businesses, which are subject to stricter supervision while the Mexican businesses that are micro-, small, or medium-sized are just trying to survive. When they do have extra resources, they do not invest them in improving the eco-efficiency of their processes, as this is considered an unnecessary expense.

According to Prieto de la Fuente, noncompliance with norms is also due to complexity of the compliance process. "The private sector", he said, "is not seeking to totally eliminate supervision, but rather to simplify it. However, it is essential that we convince businessmen that complying with the norms will not only allow them to avoid fines but will also reduce costs and open markets."

Translated from Spanish by Jennifer Struna, July 25, 2001